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Original poster

Survey on car seat usability - RANTS WELCOME!

28 replies

alq · 30/03/2006 20:50

Good evening all,

I'd like to ask for a bit of help with a piece of work I am doing for my engineering degree. First, a (very brief) outline:

"Human factors in child car seats"

The well-publicised problem of car seat misuse (i.e. incorrect installation, usage or maintenance) has been tackled to some extent by the introduction of ISOFIX and better advice from manufacturers and retailers on how to install and use seats. But an estimated 85% of seats are misused, with around 15% being so badly misued that they are effectively useless.

From talking to parents, it would seem to me that there are a collection of reasons contributing to the problem of car seat misuse. Here are a few that keep coming up:

instructions unclear/inadequate
conflicting advice on which type of seat to use according to age of child
conflicting advice on whether ISOFIX is safer and worth the extra cost
not knowing whose advice to trust
no sure way of knowing when seat is installed properly (e.g. no visual indications)

Throwing this wide open:

Would you agree with the points above? What are the other problems with using car seats? If you could design your own car seat, what would be different about it?

Please tell me as much as possible! As well as helping a very stressed student out with his coursework, your feedback will be passed onto the R&D departments of the major manufacturers who will then hopefully take notice and respond!

Thank you all very much in advance!

OP posts:

starlover · 30/03/2006 20:54

also not all cars can take isofix seats!

there should be mroe stringent guidelines on car seats to ensure they're safe

shops that stock seats should have a trained person to show you how to fit it properly

instructions should be in the same format, whatever the manufacturer... plain english, easy to understand and clear pictures.

if i could design my own it would be easy to recline, and have a nice soft squidgy seat!

starlover · 30/03/2006 20:54

my car seat is AWFUL for adjusting the straps on, and I almost gave up when ds was little, which could have made the seat unsafe for him.

manufacturers need to make sure that little things like that are EASY to do

edam · 30/03/2006 20:55

Agree with your list of reasons. Car seats are difficult to use. Would welcome a visual indication that it's been done right. Also really, really difficult to work out in advance which seat will fit your car and your child.

What really makes me angry is that manufacturers dare to sell seats that are unsafe in the first place. Seats which fell apart in crash tests performed by Which?, for example. Can't imagine what on earth goes through their tiny minds (or how they sleep at night).

Hulababy · 30/03/2006 20:56

I have an Isofix car seat for my DD, who is almost 4 years old. There were very limited choices available to me for this age range. We ended up only knowing of one Isofix booster style seat with back - the Jane Indy Plus and this was not easy to get hold of.

having used an Isofix seat previously - teh Britax Duo - ii was determined to do so again.

Find the Isofix so easy and quick to fix, although it really is important to have the guiders if you want quick to be part of the benefits! And they seem so much safer - they have to be surely as they are attached to the car itself and you just know it is fitted right. there is none of the uncertainty that you get with a seat belt fitted car seat.

Just wish they weren't so much dearer.

Where possible I turn to the Which car seat safety reports to help me in my decision making.

starlover · 30/03/2006 20:56

oh yeah agre with edam.... manufacturers should provide comprehensive lists of which cars theior seats fit.

or the government should...

zebrabra · 30/03/2006 21:33

people who don't own and/or who hire cars, get lifts with friends.
What the F. are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to make sure they seat we use always fits right? Are we supposed to hire the car for an extra day every time so we can take it somewhere (am really not sure where) to make sure the seat(s) are fitted correctly? Are we supposed to check our friends have fit it right, too?
It annoys me no end all this safety pressure about making sure the seat you bought is right for your car, almost pointless advice for families who don't own a car.

Bozza · 30/03/2006 21:38

Sort of a similar thing to Zebra. DH has a company car that has to be changed every 3 years, this does not coincide with changing car seats for children but not all car seats fit all cars. So when DD needed a stage 1 car seat and DH would be getting a new car 6 months later we were really guessing what would be best.

Also sometimes it is difficult to fit 3 car seats into lots of models of cars. Seatbelts are not best placed for securing car seats, leading to eg. buckle crunch. Lots of modern cars have scooped out seats which again tend not to help with fitting the car seats.

HTH

Original poster

alq · 30/03/2006 22:05

Thanks everyone, all very helpful. (Keep going though...!)

Another one I forgot to mention was ride comfort, which breaks down into a handful of points:

extent to which seat isolates/cushions child from vibration
how comfortable seat is in general
which parts are uncomfortable, if any (e.g. armrests, good or bad?)
how well seat fits child (e.g. too much/not enough room at the bottom? not enough support at the neck?)

Does anyone have a child still in a car seat and old enough to say insightful things about any of these?? My SIL's friend's son could only give me "hurts my bum". :o

OP posts:

jane313 · 30/03/2006 22:11

Its getting the seatbelt tight and teh seat ridgid that used to kill me. Especially in the stage one seat that was in and out of the car all the time. My first trip out putting the seat in By myself I gave up in tears and got 2 buses instead.

hub2dee · 30/03/2006 22:13

Check out the Maxi-Cosi Tobi (launched last week, in shops within the next month or two) - it does a number of nice things: 'tension correct' indicator on the child's buckle, and also retracts the strap / buckle out of the way so you can put in / remove child easily.

'Fit Finder' databases (a la Britiax) seem rather incomplete and semi-useless IMHO. These databases should also allow you to enter more than one car (ie your second car, or the in-laws etc.) and have best seat recommendations which might work across the two vehicles IYSWIM.

Diagrams of common bench / seat shapes (ie flat / scooped) with fit suggestions, and explanations of 'universal' seats etc. would perhaps help, as would a clear 'this infant seat requires 2m of seat belt webbing to be correctly installed'.

I noticed that Britiax in Germany (Römer) have seats which pivot forward away from a rear shell to allow you to have much better visibility of seat belt routing. That seems clever.

Finally, a belt tensioning device (Iseos TT, Maxi Cosi Priori etc.) could, I imagine, combat poor (ie. slack) installation. (Obviously doesn't address incorrect routing).

Possible Idea: You know those tiny circuits you get in greeting cards which play a song etc. Get one made to guide the client through the install, and have it stuck on the seat body (somewhere kiddo can't touch): "Pull the seat belt buckle through the red clamp, and lock into your car's buckle holder. Guide the long diagonal belt into the green slot on the front of the chair.... ooh, and don't forget one semi-skimmed and one full-cream from Tesco on the way back home"

HTH

Bozza · 30/03/2006 22:14

On the subject of seat comfort. I think a lot of children grow out of a seat before they are the correct weight to move into the next seat. So you get babies who are under 9kg but there legs stick over the end of the Stage 0 seat. And you get 3 yos who are not yet 15kg but seem really crammed into the stage 1 seats.

Also find that my DD gets sweaty in her stage one seat. The Britax one in DH's car is worse because of being a less breathable fabric.

Bozza · 30/03/2006 22:16

hub2dee - good point about how much seat belt you need for a rear facing baby seat.

kipper22 · 31/03/2006 09:51

D.S. is nearly 8 months and weighs 19lb - so nearly ready for a new seat but not quite. He is quite tall and the positioning of the straps on his seat mean that he cannot wear thick clothing and we have to pull the straps really tight across his shoulders. It has been this way since about 4 or 5 months of age. To say he looks uncomfortable would be an understatement!
Also, when we bought the seat (from a respected baby products chain beginning with m and ending in othercare!) we followed advice and asked the assistant to check it suited our car. She did so and it was fine on the front seat of D.H.'s Micra. After purchase, however, we have discovered that the belts in the back seat are too short and lock when fully extended. Hence, I have to travel in the back with the seat in the front - not really ideal!
(Did you need to know which car seat? If so it's the one that forms part of the Graco Travel System.)
hth alq, good luck with the assignment! :)

beatie · 31/03/2006 10:00

My dd is quite petite and quite the Houdini. She could get her arms out of any stage 1 car seat straps even though I pulled the straps as tight as was possible. The straps were all too wide apart for my liking.

Something I find/found annoying on all carseats was that when the child is taken out of it, the buckles/cips on the straps tend to fall back into the seat of the carseat, so the next time I put my dd into the carseat, I have to hold her with one hand and fish the strap and buckle out of the way with the other hand, else dd ends up sitting on the buckles and I have to reach under her bottom to get them out! Just a personal little irk of mine!

I have a new stage 0/1 carseat for dd2 and I love it. It's a Concorde Ultimax and the carseat is in two parts. It has a shell, which you strap in place and then a seat which clips onto the top. Not at all like the the infant carseats which fit onto a base.

The shell has different colour-coded routing points to indicate where the straps go for rear facing or forward facing installation. I like colour coding. I hate that the instruction book is in so many languages it takes me forever to find the 4 pages of English out of a 60 page booklet! I'd prefer a simple instruction card in English only. One that fits somewhere inside the carseat. Perhaps more than one copy, so I can file one in the house.

Hausfrau · 31/03/2006 10:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mythumbelinas · 31/03/2006 10:07

I love my maxi-cosi. V straight forward to use, remove and install again.
Reclines and has ridges to slot seat belt straps into, to get it out the way, when putting in/taking child out.

susiemum · 17/04/2006 18:01

We have the Maxi Cosi CabrioFix 0+ car seat and the EasyFix base.

Can anyone tell me whether these two, when used in combination along with the EasyFix base extendable leg, ALSO require the use of the seat belt ?

The instructions are ambiguous... At the start they say that a seat belt should be used and then when running through the "how to tell if it is all fitted properly" section there is no mention of a seat belt whatsoever.

Help !

NannyL · 17/04/2006 18:04

Yes susie mum....... its absolutely essential that you use a seat belt

not used the maxi cosi with base yet but guess you use a seat belt to fix the base, so you just clip and unclip the seat into the already strapped in base

Yorkiegirl · 17/04/2006 18:07

is the cabriofix not an isofix seat tho? If it is (and correct me if I'm wrong) then no the seat belt doesn't need to be used!

fruitful · 17/04/2006 18:36

If you're fixing the base in using isofix then no, you don't need the seatbelt.
\link{http://www.instructions.maxi-cosi.com/\instructions and pictures here}

fruitful · 17/04/2006 18:53

Hulababy - what are the isofix guides? We have the Indyplus and don't have anything like that...

purplemonkeydishwasher · 17/04/2006 18:55

We had trouble getting a seat that would fit our car (mondeo) because the seatbelts were just a bit too short. Had to go with the Britax rockatot because we could route it through the front as well as over the seat IYSWIM.

Now that DS is getting older and bigger he seems sooo uncomfortable in his seat. He just seems too wide for it. He is a big baby (23lbs - 6.5 months) but as he's not big enough for the next stage seat it's very awkward.

susiemum · 18/04/2006 10:14

The CabrioFix IS an slots into the EasyFix base which fits into the car with two IsoFix mountings.

But 2 No's and 1 Yes - confused ! Or is the seatbelt addition an additional precauation ?

susiemum · 18/04/2006 10:15

NannyL

The base is not strapped in - it is locked in with two isofix connections...

tarantuless · 18/04/2006 10:32

To follow on from zebrabra point about people who dont have cars, I'd like a car seat that is lightweight and portable as well as safe as I often go places by bus or train and would sometimes like to get a cab home. oh yes and cheap too cos its not like I use it that often.

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