Survey on car seat usability - RANTS WELCOME!

[alq]

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!

We've had several car seats
Can't remember what the baby seat was - but they are far to heavy even before you put a baby in them, for me being short trying to lift it into a trolley to do the shopping was a nightmare i ended up with the carseat at eye hight. The handles are all the wrong way. Not sure how to describe this. If you pick up a carrier bag and look at how you are holding it your curled fingers will brush your leg, if you carry a baby seat your hand is twisted through 90 degrees to this and makes carrying the seat more difficult.

The second was a britax Renaissance - would only fit the front seat of my old peugot. But would fit my DH's car far better. When buying a new car we had no idea if it fitted properly and had to take a chance - you can't get a fitter to go with you and check the fit.

We've now moved on to the next stage up, but DS still falls asleep in the seat and it has no head support for when he does.
The material is polyester which washes and wears well but is hot and sweaty to sit on for any lenght of time (20 mins).
Even when fitted properly the seams on the straps catch on the cover of the seat and prevent you tightening them properly - I've checked I haven't put them back on the seat wrongly and they won't go anyother way.
Seats are hard and unforgiving, I wouldn't want to sit on it for long.
No way of attaching a tray for DS to draw/read/eat off when we doing journeys

Does have a 5 point seat belt which was important as at 2.5 felt he was too young to only have the car seat belt holding him in.

Not much that others haven't said but my 2 penneth.
Good luck with the course work

in my extensive experience of all things babay related (dont ask how many pushchairs/prams and carseats ive had) the easiest for babies was the britatx rock a tot, and aclose second was the graco...which ever one fitted on the mothercare tandem..
but then again, in the middle of the night with scraming baby and no sleep for two weeks i couldnt have given a damn what the stupid contraption looked like, did or fitted on to..all iwanted was a cure for colic and some sleeping pills...im never having kids again!!!!

1)holders to keep the straps and buckle out of the way.(i know some do them but not all)
2)Easy to follow instructions
3)easy to route 5 point harness, our britax you have to practically take apart to change the height on the harness and then I panic that I havent done it correctly.