Rear facing child seats are 5 times safer....
Discussion
lenats31 said:
That´s a good point.
One major issue with this outside of Scandinavia is the test results. Rearfacing seats allways loose big time in the Userfriendliness section. This is where you´ll find installation, userguide, legroom, space-requirements, view out the car and those sorts of things. They all have two things in common: They are all tested by a group of parents in Germany, who in most cases have never seen a rearfacing seat this group, and so find them difficult to install etc. The next thing is that all results in this section of the test are subjective - based on opinions. The parents are handpicked every time a test round is being done. They do know forward facing seats very well tough. Not these large rearfacing ones.
Space requirements results are only based on what you see when the seat has been installed into the car. For a forward facing seat that means it is only the one that you see right there. The forward pitch of the seat in a frontal impact is not counted for right here.
So what you have is a bunch of parents who have never laid eyes on such a seat before (rearfacing) as forward facing seats are the norm. What they think doesn´t necessarily go for you. If you don´t have trouble with the installation, have decent room for your self, child doesn´t complain about discomfort and not able to see anything. and you do everything right. Then the testresuls don´t count for you.
It works the same way for forward facing seats, which they often find no or reduced trouble with. The good result there dont count if you hav truble with the particular seat, have not installed it correctly, not use it correctly etc.
You wouldn´t believe how many parents that aren´t aware of this. Hardly no-one does.
Userfriendliness count for 50% of the overall score. Safety is 50%.
It is quite understandable that such thing as correct installation, seats stability are important factors that will affect the seats crashworthiness. So certainly not something that should be taken lightly. Installation is just one side of it. You MUST use the seat correctly all the time too. Misuse will result in poorer crashworhiness as well.
But if you have a rearfacing seat that got a bunch of poor scores and a Don´t Buy. If you don´t have trouble in the areas where it scored poorly and do it all correctly, then you could very well be the owner of a Best Buy car seat.
By the way, ADAC remove the front seats when testing these rearfacing seats. That´s not how we install them. Ideally they should be in contact with the front seat.
Furthermore it is allways the worst results that will be used to evaluate the seat. SO if you have a seat such as the Britax Multi-tech that can face forwards from 9 kg too. Then you are sur to get the crash results from forward facing mode and not rearfacing.
Don´t Buy Results that rearfacing seats often get result in a poor market for them as most parents want the Best Buy seats only. To them, this test is not a GUIDE which is reallye meant to be. It is THE ANSWER what seat will be the best one regardless.
They only test 1 or 2 rearfacing seats each time. So these test families don´t get a bunch of rearfacing seats to compare.
The manufactorers often get the blame for this. The problem isn´t them. This test is and the lack of knowledge about how the it is carried out, which results are used to evaluate the seats etc. (read above). If you look at countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland what you will find is that everybody is pushing rearfacing hard and have done since the 1960s. Insurance companies, etc. car manufactorers, everything and everybody is involved.
One major issue with this outside of Scandinavia is the test results. Rearfacing seats allways loose big time in the Userfriendliness section. This is where you´ll find installation, userguide, legroom, space-requirements, view out the car and those sorts of things. They all have two things in common: They are all tested by a group of parents in Germany, who in most cases have never seen a rearfacing seat this group, and so find them difficult to install etc. The next thing is that all results in this section of the test are subjective - based on opinions. The parents are handpicked every time a test round is being done. They do know forward facing seats very well tough. Not these large rearfacing ones.
Space requirements results are only based on what you see when the seat has been installed into the car. For a forward facing seat that means it is only the one that you see right there. The forward pitch of the seat in a frontal impact is not counted for right here.
So what you have is a bunch of parents who have never laid eyes on such a seat before (rearfacing) as forward facing seats are the norm. What they think doesn´t necessarily go for you. If you don´t have trouble with the installation, have decent room for your self, child doesn´t complain about discomfort and not able to see anything. and you do everything right. Then the testresuls don´t count for you.
It works the same way for forward facing seats, which they often find no or reduced trouble with. The good result there dont count if you hav truble with the particular seat, have not installed it correctly, not use it correctly etc.
You wouldn´t believe how many parents that aren´t aware of this. Hardly no-one does.
Userfriendliness count for 50% of the overall score. Safety is 50%.
It is quite understandable that such thing as correct installation, seats stability are important factors that will affect the seats crashworthiness. So certainly not something that should be taken lightly. Installation is just one side of it. You MUST use the seat correctly all the time too. Misuse will result in poorer crashworhiness as well.
But if you have a rearfacing seat that got a bunch of poor scores and a Don´t Buy. If you don´t have trouble in the areas where it scored poorly and do it all correctly, then you could very well be the owner of a Best Buy car seat.
By the way, ADAC remove the front seats when testing these rearfacing seats. That´s not how we install them. Ideally they should be in contact with the front seat.
Furthermore it is allways the worst results that will be used to evaluate the seat. SO if you have a seat such as the Britax Multi-tech that can face forwards from 9 kg too. Then you are sur to get the crash results from forward facing mode and not rearfacing.
Don´t Buy Results that rearfacing seats often get result in a poor market for them as most parents want the Best Buy seats only. To them, this test is not a GUIDE which is reallye meant to be. It is THE ANSWER what seat will be the best one regardless.
They only test 1 or 2 rearfacing seats each time. So these test families don´t get a bunch of rearfacing seats to compare.
The manufactorers often get the blame for this. The problem isn´t them. This test is and the lack of knowledge about how the it is carried out, which results are used to evaluate the seats etc. (read above). If you look at countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland what you will find is that everybody is pushing rearfacing hard and have done since the 1960s. Insurance companies, etc. car manufactorers, everything and everybody is involved.
Edited by lenats31 on Saturday 18th January 14:11
saved me having to type it
mekondelta said:
Hi GreenMan, does your child's head fall forward when he/she is asleep in the E91. I have an E87 1-series and the rear seat of the car is angled too steeply for even the child seat's angle adjustments to compensate. Looking at E90/91s at the moment but yet to drive/try one...
Sorry for the late response, I've only just seen this - answer is no, the angle's fine in the E91. The base of the seat seems to be quite flat.hope that helps!
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