Consumer Reports now says Car Seats are safe

[blessedby3]

Seems like Consumer Reports reported false information about the infant car seats. Now they are saying that instead of testing them at 35-38 miles per hour they tested them at 70 miles per hour . Big difference- you would think someone would have noticed double the difference before scaring tons of parents. They retested the seats at 35-38 mph and they all passed. What a crazy situation. At least parents can rest now knowing that their seats are much safer than CR said.

 

[meandtheguys2]

What a huge screw up! I wonder how many already replaced their old ones?

 

[SueM in MN]

What a huge screw up! I wonder how many already replaced their old ones?

Based on the thread that was posted when this article came out, quite a few.

 

[loveysbydesign]

I think when our new addition arrives in June I'll still be likely to buy one of the 2 that passed at 70 mph instead of one of the others. We certainly don't drive that fast, but we do drive 60-65 mph near our house when we travel the turnpike and interstate, better to be safe then sorry. All it takes is one idiot not paying attetion to what they're doing!

 

[all4fun]

I think when our new addition arrives in June I'll still be likely to buy one of the 2 that passed at 70 mph instead of one of the others. We certainly don't drive that fast, but we do drive 60-65 mph near our house when we travel the turnpike and interstate, better to be safe then sorry. All it takes is one idiot not paying attetion to what they're doing!

Since the whole testing process was suspect then the two that passed might not pass again if the same test was done over. No telling.

And the 70mph collision was a side impact. Sure we do 60-70 mph on the highway all the time, but collisions are usually front impact, not side. Car seats do very well in frontal impacts. The test CR did was basically like parking your car in the middle of an intersection and having someone hit the side of the car going 70mph. That kind of collision is extremely rare and would be catastrophic, no matter what car seat you were using. The 30mph crash currently done is worse than 97.6% than all frontal impact collisions that require a tow-away (data collected over a 5-yr period) I just wanted to reassure people that the safest seat is the one that fits your child, fits your car, and is used properly every time.

 

[blessedby3]

Since the whole testing process was suspect then the two that passed might not pass again if the same test was done over. No telling.

And the 70mph collision was a side impact. Sure we do 60-70 mph on the highway all the time, but collisions are usually front impact, not side. Car seats do very well in frontal impacts. The test CR did was basically like parking your car in the middle of an intersection and having someone hit the side of the car going 70mph. That kind of collision is extremely rare and would be catastrophic, no matter what car seat you were using. The 30mph crash currently done is worse than 97.6% than all frontal impact collisions that require a tow-away (data collected over a 5-yr period) I just wanted to reassure people that the safest seat is the one that fits your child, fits your car, and is used properly every time.

Yes, the lady on the news said that it would be a fatality at that speed no matter what seat you used. That is a pretty hard hit from the side.

 

[grlpwrd]

Since the whole testing process was suspect then the two that passed might not pass again if the same test was done over. No telling.

And the 70mph collision was a side impact. Sure we do 60-70 mph on the highway all the time, but collisions are usually front impact, not side. Car seats do very well in frontal impacts. The test CR did was basically like parking your car in the middle of an intersection and having someone hit the side of the car going 70mph. That kind of collision is extremely rare and would be catastrophic, no matter what car seat you were using. The 30mph crash currently done is worse than 97.6% than all frontal impact collisions that require a tow-away (data collected over a 5-yr period) I just wanted to reassure people that the safest seat is the one that fits your child, fits your car, and is used properly every time.

Thanks for posting... and always being a child carseat safety advocate.



I think it is very irresponsible of CR to publish those findings then end up retracting them. What happened to confirming data prior to publishing it?

 

[Tiger926]

It bothers me that so many people think Consumer Reports is accurate. It has absolutely no following in the scientific community. They don't reveal how they do their tests, so why is anyone still buying their crap? I don't mean to offend anyone on here who believes in CR, but anyone who knows anything about testing, knows that revealing testing conditions is absolutely pertinent and necessary for people to understand how to interpret those test results. This type of report was put out to scare parents, and sell mags, of this I am convinced!

CR blatantly lied in this report, as they do with many other tests in order to sell magazines. They are their own best marketing machine - too bad so many people believe in their drivel and felt the need to sell seats that were perfectly safe, yet they didn't know anything about how the tests were conducted.

Hopefully this will put to ease any of you who believe in CR's testing methods and you can rest easy knowing that your car seats, as long as properly installed and used correctly, are safe for use with your precious children.

Tiger

 

[SueM in MN]

It bothers me that so many people think Consumer Reports is accurate. It has absolutely no following in the scientific community. They don't reveal how they do their tests, so why is anyone still buying their crap? I don't mean to offend anyone on here who believes in CR, but anyone who knows anything about testing, knows that revealing testing conditions is absolutely pertinent and necessary in people understand how to interpret those test results.

A lot of the tests are also very subjective - and you don't know that just from looking at the end results. Sometimes they will rate something way down for not having a feature that is not important to me anyway or for 'ease of use', which is very dependent on who is using it.

 

[Not so Dumbo]

It still doesn't bring me much comfort knowing that they failed at 70 mph. Around here, that's not too much over the average speed limit. A side impact would be likely if someone ran a stop sign, which is how many accidents happen around here, being in a rural area.