NHTSA Proposes New Child Seat Rules

[Variance]

Link: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=107104

WASHINGTON — NHTSA is hoping to raise the bar for manufacturers who make seats for older and heavier children.

NHTSA hopes to change laws to require child safety-seat manufacturers to make seats that can protect children up to the age of 10 and weight of 80 pounds from serious injury or death, in car crashes at speeds up to 30 mph.

If such laws are put into effect, NHTSA will provide seat builders with a dummy to simulate a child of these proportions for use in crash tests. The organization's current crash tests only provide for children weighing up to 65 pounds.

What this means to you: Car crashes are the top killers of children in this country, and NHTSA hopes to change that sad statistic.

[Satty]

If kids weren't getting so fat, we wouldn't need heavier dummies. And if parents weren't so stupid, we wouldn't have as many kids die in car crashes. Kids in back, if they're still small, put them in a seat, dont play with the radio or talk on the phone or eat while driving. There, I just saves thousands of lives a year and saved NHTSA millions of dollars.

[Flybrian]

Its Ford's fault your child was strangled to death because you left him inside a Sable with the engine running and he stepped on the window swtiches trying to watch your run into Old Navy to return the crappy Capri pants you just bought because you think the color makes your hips look fat.

[Satty]

When I was like 9 or 10, we went to Atlanta as kind of a vacation/checking out the area in case my dad transferred there trip. We drove our RV down there and rented a Tempo, it was the first car I can remember being in with power windows. My sister stuck her head out the window while we were parked somewhere and I closed it. No damage, other than a headache. But yeah, that SOOOO would have been Ford's fault if something had happened.