Educational Materials for the Child Passenger Safety Field
News
Safe Kids provides a multitude of resources to assist local programsOn March 29, Safe Kids held its fifth annual Heatstroke Town Hall meeting. This meeting, which is meant to prepare partners for the Safe Kids’ awareness campaign launch on April 13, was recorded and is posted under Resources on the Safe Kids’ Online Speaker’s Bureau website.
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Although it may seem odd now, many in the CPS community were wary of switchable retractors when they first became available in the late 1990s. After relying on locking clips (pictured left) for so many years, some installations just seemed tighter using them.
I remember being scolded by our certification course instructor during hands-on practice for using a locking clip in a situation that could have been handled using the vehicle’s switchable belt. I explained that I’d tried to use the switchable belt, but the installation was even tighter using the tried-and-true locking-clip approach. But the instructor was unimpressed with my argument and taught me an important lesson: When picking between an installation approach that improves tightness only marginally and an approach that is vastly easier for the caregiver to replicate, one should choose the latter because it empowers the caregiver.
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In October, a study was published that predicted that 42 percent of the time, vehicles and CRs are somehow incompatible. The study, “Investigation of Child Restraint System Compatibility in the Vehicle Seat Environment,” by Ohio State College of Medicine’s Injury Biomechanics Research Center, used measurements of 59 current CRs and 61 late model vehicles to evaluate over 3,599 possible CR/vehicle combinations and predict likely incompatibilities. To validate the results, researchers conducted physical installations of 34 of the scenarios.
This information is excerpted from the 2015 LATCH Manual.
The story of tethers begins long before the introduction of LATCH. Tethers were used on forward-facing child restraints (CRs) in the United States, Canada, and Australia as early as 1970. They have been required equipment for all forward-facing CRs made since 1974 in Australia and since 1980 in Canada. In the U.S., however, though tethers were featured on some early CRs, they weren’t required. The challenges caregivers faced if they tried to retrofit their vehicles with tether anchors (TAs) led to very low levels of tether use, and tethers were eventually phased out of nearly all U.S. CR models by the mid-1980s.
This information is excerpted from the 2015 LATCH Manual.
In April 2012, the IIHS reported on findings from a joint LATCH-use study it conducted with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. “Keys to Better LATCH” identified and measured key factors in the usability of LATCH and then studied volunteers to see how these factors predicted the quality of CR installations.
In 2014, the IIHS published two follow-up reports (one on LA attachment use and the other on tether use), which further affirmed the findings of the 2012 study. The studies help prepare the IIHS for a possible next step, which is to explore a ratings system to evaluate LATCH setups in common family vehicles.
On November 8, Safe Ride News was in attendance when NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind* ((Update: Mark Rosekind is no longer the NHTSA Administrator.)) addressed school bus industry leaders at the National Association for Pupil Transportation Annual Summit. Administrator Rosekind, while reinforcing the fact that today’s school buses are the safest way to transport kids to school, voiced the agency’s strong support for the eventual goal of equipping all new school buses with lap-shoulder belts.
Some Are Actually Small
As technician candidates, we learn that children on large school buses are protected by compartmentalization, but when the bus is small, seat belts are required to protect occupants properly. We’re also taught that the cutoff between small and large buses is a 10,000-pound gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR).
Despite claims, most products currently marketed to restrain pets in vehicles can, at best, prevent them from moving about the vehicle during normal driving. While keeping a pet from distracting a driver is extremely worthwhile, the Center for Pet Safety (the Center), a nonprofit organization based in Virginia, seeks to promote the development of devices that do more to actually protect pets and other passengers in a crash. The Center’s founder, Lindsey Wolko, recently stated in an interview with Motor Trend magazine that her organization has been actively advocating for the establishment of safety standards for pet products since 2011.
While’s it’s not the norm, some people, like the owner of the pooch in this photo, do what they can to protect all vehicle occupants, including pets. Although these efforts to restrain pets are worthwhile, many pet owners would be dismayed to know how poorly most pet restraint products would perform in a crash. Anyone riding with pets should consider:
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Safe Ride News is pleased to report that Dr. Marilyn Bull has received a Champions of Change award from the White House and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Dr. Bull was recognized, along with 10 other recipients, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in October. The award honors individuals who have made a positive mark on the community by innovating in the field of transportation safety. (Pictured left DOT head, Secretary Anthony Foxx, presented Dr. Marilyn Bull with a Champions of Change award in October.)
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