Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog
There’s a new addition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) family. It’s a new “10-year-old” dummy and it’s helping to test new child car seats for children who weight 65 to 80 pounds.
With the growing number of child car seats and booster seats for heavier children, the NHTSA felt it necessary to create a crash test dummy to accurately test these devices. The new “kid dummy” is the best way to test the effective to test these new seats and see if they’re effective in protecting your child in the event of a car accident in Boston.
Our Massachusetts car accident lawyers understand that child safety seat requirements were recently updated by officials to stay up to date with the latest research and with the latest technologies for these safety devices. As manufacturers continue to create products to meet consumers need, it’s important for officials to stay on top of these products to help ensure that they’re the best they can be.
“The new test dummy breaks new ground for the department’s crash test program and is a significant step forward for evaluating child seat performance,” said Ray LaHood, the Secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Most important, the new kid dummy is going to be able to offer new information regarding chest acceleration as well as knee and head excursions. According to a final rule that was recently issued by the NHTSA, federal car seat standards must now include booster seats and child car seats with heavier-weight children. Now that these seats are covered under federal standards, researchers will dissect these seats to make sure that they effectively manage collision energy and that the seats stay put when an accident happens. The new dummy will help researchers to better test this.
Car seat makers are allotted 24 months to make sure that their new higher-weight booster seats and child car seats meet the new federal requirements.
David Strickland with the NHTSA also recently announced his excitement for the new child dummy and for the new, stricter child car seat compliance testing program. He adds that researchers aren’t done. Although the “10-year-old” dummy was just introduced to the NHTSA crash dummy family, researchers are already looking into ways to make this dummy better in search of more accurate results.
Under the new child car seat recommendations from the NHTSA, parents are urged to keep their child in a car seat for as long as they fit within the seat’s height and weight recommendations. Parents are also urged to keep their child in a booster seat, in the back seat, until they meet the height and weight requirement for these seats. This is typically when a child weighs 80 pounds or reaches a height of 4 feet and 9 inches.
Remember, car accidents are the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 3- and 14-years-old. In 2009, there were nearly 1,500 people in this age group who were killed in car accidents across the country. We can all help to reduce these risks and these fatality statistics by making sure that children are buckled in correctly during every ride in every vehicle.
If you or your kid has been injured or killed in a car accident in the Boston area, contact Massachusetts Car Accident Lawyer Jeffrey S. Glassman to schedule a free and confidential appointment to discuss your case. Call (617) 777-7777.
More Blog Entries:
Thousands of Child Safety Seats Recalled in U.S., Boston, Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog, February 7, 2012
Child Passenger Safety Week Gears Up to Prevent Child Injury in Massachusetts, Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog, September 23, 2011