Reason One - Evidence the level of car crash injuries occurs more often with side than front collision
In 1997 an extensive study by the National Highways Research Institute in Germany was carried out entitled “Improvements for the Protection of Children in Cars”, under publication issue number M 73. (The document was of course published fully in German, but as it was of benefit and interest worldwide the overview was also written in French and English)
The aim of the research was, ‘To establish what stands in the way of transporting children safely in cars, and to reveal ways of improving the protection of children when travelling as passengers’.
It involved a series of studies and analysis that ranged from safety awareness and understanding of car seat fitting by adults, the wishes and habits of the children when travelling, investigation of accident reports, and simulated crash test data monitoring different types of car seats. In particular it compared rear-facing, impact shield and 5-point harness designs for Group 1 stage (for 9 – 18kg) children.
Page 102 the research concludes, “Clear differences appear between the single protection system types: In the Group 1, a high protection effect (no MAIS 2 + injuries) appears above all in security in Impact Shield systems. The children are protected in these safety car seat type are the ones most frequently uninjured even in more serious accidents. Clearly the tendency for more serious injuries exists with 4/5 point systems.”
On page 106 the paper goes on to discuss the injuries caused by impact from the side when compared to those from the front of a vehicle. It says, “The level of higher injuries measured as MAIS 2 + clearly occurs more often with side collisions at 25.8% whereas in front collision they occur in 15.9% of cases.
Visit http://on.fb.me/n9tdI1 to see a copy of the original table of results for reference
N.B MAIS refers to the degree of injury and stands for Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale. To learn more ask Google or look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviated_Injury_Scale.
“Anz.” is the number of car seats
Reason Two
Jan-Stefan Wuerstl, Director and Head of Research & Development at Kiddy GmbH is responsible for the overall quality and effectiveness of Kiddy car seats. He says:
“For all the rear-facing Group 1 seats, they cannot achieve a “very good“ rating from Stiftung Warentest (the Govt subsidised, independent consumer testing organization that is regarded as having the highest standard of testing in Europe), for side impact protection as the bulky seat swings into the side structure of the car very hard. That´s why we stopped developing Group 1 rear-facings as the overall performance is weaker than front-facing impact shields”.
To demonstrate this look at the Stiftungwarentest results for 2009 where two rear-facing designs from Volvo and HTC were tested. They achieved only a ‘+’ or ‘Gut’ rating for side impact protection. Compare these results with the Stiftung Warentest side impact results for the Kiddy Infinity Pro from 2007 ( given a ‘++’ Sehr Gut rating which translates into English as Excellent as you do not get higher than this level) and you will see that the Kiddy Impact Shield car seat – the Infinity Pro (which was the precursor to the Energy pro) scored significantly higher.
