Vikki Sloviter
Any parent has either experienced, or heard of, the frustration of buying and installing a child safety seat. Even if the parent has done the research and found the "safest" seat money can buy, installing that seat in a vehicle may prove that purchase worthless if it's not installed or used correctly. In too many cases, installing a new car seat is not a "plug-and-play" procedure, where you simply attach the car seat with a buckle and you're all set. Car seat manufacturers may be producing safe car seats - ones that pass 35 mph impact tests - but those seats aren't safe in practice if parents can't understand the installation and proper use instructions. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), 70% of children are improperly restrained in child safety seats. How is this possible?
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Bethesda, Maryland researchers Mark V. Wenger and Deborah C. Girasek's 2003 study of the readability of child safety seat (CSS) instructions found that installation instructions for car seats manufactured through 1999 ranged from 7th-12th grade reading levels, with an average of 10th grade reading level, which exceeded the average American's reading ability. The researchers concluded that, based on literacy experts' recommendations, child safety seat installation instructions should be written at the 5th grade reading level. Four years earlier, a study of the effectiveness of hands-on safety seat instruction found that only 6.4% of the parents had correctly installed a child safety seat prior to the study.
Independent of these findings, the NHTSA has realized the importance of proper car seat installation and use in preventing child injury and death and has created the five-star "Ease-of-Use" ratings system, similar to their crash-test ratings, to help parents make informed decisions about how easy - or difficult - it is to use certain child safety seats. This new ratings system went into effect in January 2008. Parents should not confuse this new Ease of Use ratings system with child safety seat safety ratings; the two are not the same.
The NHTSA's Ease-of-Use Ratings is a five-star ratings system that evaluates each child safety seats in four major areas: instructions, labels, vehicle installation features, and securing the child. Five stars = excellent features, 4 stars = above average features, 3 stars = average features, 2 stars = below average features, and 1 star = poor features. The Overall Ease-of-Use Rating is the average of those four evaluations.
While parents could simply look at the Overall Ease-of-Use Ratings when deciding what child safety seat to purchase, they should also look at the rating of each category, because a seat may be rated one star for labeling, but four stars for installation features and securing the child. Ideally, all child safety seats should rate highly in each of the four categories, but parents need to decide for themselves what categories are more important than others.
Here is a list of child safety seats that have an Overall Ease-of-Use Rating of four or five stars. Remember, all of these seats meet federal crash performance standards, and these ratings are not safety ratings. For a complete list, please visit www.nhtsa.gov.
Infant rear-facing seats - 4 stars
• Baby Trend Flex-Loc
• Britax Companion
• Chicco KeyFit
• Chicco KeyFit 30
• Combi Centre DX
• Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP 30/30
Infant rear-facing seat - 5 stars
• AngelGuard AngelRide (for infants up to 9 lbs)
Toddler forward-facing seats - 4 stars
• Graco Toddler Safeseat
Toddler forward-facing seat - 5 stars
• Safeguard Child Seat
Convertible seats - 4 stars (B = booster position; FF = forward-facing position)
• Evenflo Chase/Traditions (B)
• Recaro Signo (FF)
• Alpha Vantage (B)
• Evenflo Express (B)
• Safeguard Go (FF)
• Safety First Surveyor (B)
Child booster seats - 4 stars
• Cosco Highrise
• Cosco Traveler
• Evenflo Big Kid (high back)
• Graco Air Booster
• Graco Turbo Booster (high back)
• Jane Indy Plus
Child booster seats - 5 stars
• Compass B510
• Eddie Bauer Auto Booster (high back)
• Eddie Bauer Auto Booster (no back)
• Evenflo Big Kid (no back)
• Evenflo Sightseer
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