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Docket Management System
U.S. Department of Transportation
Room PL-401
400 Seventh Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590-0001
Re: Docket Number: NHTSA-7938
COMMENTS OF CONSUMERS UNION
to the
NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
on
THE CHILD RESTRAINT SYSTEM SAFETY PLAN
Introduction
Consumers Union (CU)(1) has been testing child restraint systems (CRS) for over 25 years, and we have enjoyed a positive working relationship with NHTSA throughout this process. We find that consumers enthusiastically welcome our reports on products purchased for and used by their children, and many tell us that safety is their top priority. Based on our experience in testing and rating child restraints and publishing that information in our flagship publication, Consumer Reports magazine, we believe that we can offer constructive suggestions on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Child Restraint Safety Systems Plan (hereinafter "Safety Plan"). We hope our comments will be helpful in guiding NHTSA in its efforts to improve the effectiveness of testing procedures and develop methods for sharing useful information with consumers.
We applaud the role NHTSA has played
in improving child passenger safety. As the Safety Plan notes, use of safety
seats for children aged 0-4 has increased more than 20% in the past eight years.
Despite this progress, however, it is a tragic fact that motor vehicle crashes
killed 1,135 children aged 0-10 years and injured approximately 182,000 in 1999.
The three deaths and 500 injuries per day that this represents tells us all
that much work is left to do. There is ample evidence, however, that the vast
majority of parents and caregivers want to take the steps necessary to protect
their children. They are more apt to do so if given accurate information about
which child restraints are safest, how to use child restraints safely, which
ones are easiest to use and which provide the most protection appropriate to
the age of the child.
The United States Congress clearly shares NHTSA's concerns and the concerns
of millions of consumers on the need to improve the testing and use of child
restraints. The auto safety legislation passed by Congress this fall, the Transportation
Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act (TREAD), Public Law
106-414 (114 Stat. 1800), contained a series of mandates to NHTSA for testing
and evaluating child restraints and increasing their usage for children up to
80 pounds and 10 years old.
The facts set out below demonstrate the importance of working to increase car
seat use:
· Since 1975, child restraint systems, including infant seats, convertible seats, and booster seats, have saved the lives of more than 4,000 children.
· Though only 8% of all children under age 5 rode unrestrained in 1998, they accounted for more than half of the child occupant fatalities.
· Rear facing infant seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71%, forward-facing safety seats for toddlers reduce the risk of fatal injury by 54%, and safety belts reduce fatalities by 45%.
· Motor vehicle crashes killed 100 fewer children ages four and younger in 1999 than in 1996, a 15% decrease due to increased use.
We now address ourselves to the three strategies that NHTSA has identified as a means to accomplish the goal of having every child properly protected by a child restraint system.
Encourage Correct Use of Child
Restraints
These figures demonstrate the tragedy
from failure to use or improper use of child restraints:
· As many as 68 additional deaths to children aged 0-6 years old could be prevented each year by eliminating misuse of child restraints. Studies show that about 80% of child restraints are used incorrectly.
· If all children aged 0-4 years old had been restrained in safety seats, 173 lives could have been saved in 1998.
· More than 60% of children aged 0-5 years old who were killed in car crashes in 1998 were not in safety seats.
CU finds it troublesome that so many child restraints have been or are difficult to install properly and are susceptible, therefore, to improper use. As one mother testifying at NHTSA's February 9, 2000 public meeting on CRS observed, paraphrased here, "If 80% of a schoolteacher's class is failing, there is something wrong with his or her teaching methods. We don't point the finger at the kids. The same is true for car seats. When such a large percentage of people install these seats improperly, the blame must lie with the seats and not the parents or caregivers installing them."
We know that children can die or suffer severe pain and life-altering injuries
from improper installation of child restraints. Federal regulators long ago
should have worked with industry to develop a standardized system of CRS. While
we applaud NHTSA, which has been regulating child safety seats since 1971, for
its 1999 rulemaking requiring the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH)
system in all vehicles and car seats over the next few years, we regret that
it has taken so long for such standardization to be required.
The LATCH system's effectiveness with the variety of car seats that will become
available in the future, and the many vehicles into which they must be fit,
should be tested and evaluated by NHTSA engineers. We are pleased to learn of
NHTSA's plan to perform an effectiveness study of the LATCH system, including
a Special Crash Investigation program of crashes involving LATCH equipped vehicles
and safety seats. NHTSA's affirmative effort to detect compatibility problems
between car seats and vehicles is critical, and will help to avoid the widespread
problem of incompatibility between the two that exists in the current generation
of car seats.
Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater and NHTSA should be commended for
using their bully pulpit to educate about and encourage greater use of child
restraints through programs like Buckle Up America and Operation Always Buckle
Children. The fact that 19 million more Americans buckled up in 1998 than
in 1997 is a sign that well-planned and well-executed public safety campaigns
work. We know that there is a relationship between adults who buckle up and
the likelihood their child passengers will be buckled2. We applaud the agency
for launching Don't Skip a Step, the campaign to improve on the very low percentage
of children between the ages of 4 and 8 who have outgrown their toddler seats
and need to be in boosters. The February 1999 report from the National Safe
Kids Campaign found that a mere 5% of booster-seat age children ride in these
seats. Those numbers, combined with NHTSA's figures showing that only 20% of
parents had heard of booster seats, demonstrate the need for broadening the
agency's public education effort.
Recommendation: CU knows of no national program in the schools to educate
parents and caregivers about keeping children safe in cars. Don't Skip a Step
should be introduced into elementary schools across the country, with parents
receiving easy-to-understand brochures in their children's take-home materials
(similar to those designed by the National Safe Kids Campaign using colorful
photos of children of different ages to show how to buckle a child properly).
These materials should make clear to parents and caregivers that children between
the ages of 4-8 need the boost that the booster seat gives them in order to
be protected in a crash.
CU supports NHTSA's outreach effort to pediatricians. Hospitals routinely require
new parents to have an infant seat installed before driving away with their
newborn. NHTSA's goal should be to replicate the success of that effort in elementary
schools and among pediatricians.
Recommendation: CU encourages NHTSA to pursue federal legislation and
regulation that will create incentives for states to adopt a model state law
on child restraints. To the extent this model is adopted in states across the
country, we would see the kind of uniformity and clarity in child restraint
laws that is missing in the current patchwork of state laws. We recommend that
NHTSA develop a model state law that would provide coverage for all children
from birth to age 16.
Recommendation: In the discussion of this first strategy area outlined
by NHTSA, the Safety Plan does not address the fact that many child restraints
have to be assembled by the consumer, a process that can lead to unsafe results.
We recommend that NHTSA send letters to manufacturers urging that they immediately
begin shipping the seats completely assembled.
Ensure that Child Restraint Systems Provide Optimal Protection.
CU's 1995 Petition to NHTSA
The Child Restraint System Safety Plan outlines as its second of three strategies
the goal of providing optimal protection for children. We remind NHTSA that
CU petitioned the agency in 1995 specifically to upgrade the protection provided
by CRS. NHTSA rejected our petition at that time and has never acted to change
its testing requirements, as CU urged the agency to do. On February 9, 2000
at NHTSA's public meeting on child restraints, we made our case again.
At that time we noted the following:
CU was encouraged by former NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez' message of
September 14, 1999 in a letter he sent to manufacturers of child restraints:
mere compliance with the minimum requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standard 213, the car seat standard, is not enough. Martinez noted that many
restraints have been engineered to just comply with some of the most safety-critical
requirements of the standard, rather than being engineered with substantial
compliance margins. For example, he noted that few of the restraints tested
by NHTSA had a head excursion compliance margin of 10% or more, and only a handful
had more that a 20% compliance margin.
However, we were also struck with the irony of his admonishments to child seat
makers. In 1995, three child safety seats failed Consumer Reports magazine crash
tests3. CU noted in the September 1995 CR article where the results of our testing
first appeared that, "In our past reports on child safety seats, we took
statements of compliance with the Federal standard as assurance of their safety.
This time, we crash-tested the seats ourselves to find out how well they perform
in trials that were similar to, but in some cases slightly tougher than, the
Government specifies."
CR found that the Century 590 used with its base failed in a test with a "9
month-old" 20 pound dummy, where the force of the crash causing the carrier
to break away from the base. The Evenflo On My Way 206 failed in tests without
its base, where the force of the crash breaking the shell near one of the hook-ups
for the vehicle safety belt, leaving one side of the carrier with the dummy
strapped inside unsecured from the bench seat. The seat performed well in tests
with the "9 month-old" dummy when used with its detachable base. The
Kolcraft Traveler 700's buckle failed in the forward-facing position with the
33-pound dummy, releasing the harness and allowing the dummy to strike the overhead
shield. The shield then broke away and, in one test, the dummy was ejected from
the seat. In another test, the dummy was left hanging from the seat's harness
straps. When tested in the rear facing position, the seat performed safely.
The three failing car seats were judged "Not Acceptable" by the magazine.
Consumer Reports crash-tested the seats in a trial that was similar to
- but slightly tougher than - the existing government tests. Consumer Reports
tests closely parallel those used for government certification. After the crash,
the integrity of the safety seat is examined. We used, where possible, a dummy
whose weight matched the manufacturer's claims on the seat's packaging for the
maximum-weight user.
CU petitioned NHTSA on August 4, 1995, asking the agency to reconsider its amendments
to Standard 213. We stated"…[b]ased on our own testing we believe
that the amendments are insufficient to assure the safety of many children who
will be the users of seats certified and deemed safe in compliance tests conducted
in accordance with the provisions of the amended standard. Our tests reported
in the Consumer Reports rating of child safety seats will appear in the September
issue. Three models in that report are rated Not Acceptable for safety reasons".
We asked that the amendments be further revised to reflect the following principles:
· The statements on product labels and packaging indicated maximum "Designed for use" weights should not recommend a weight greater than that of the test dummy specified in certification and compliance tests.
· Testing should match the 30-mph speed specified in the standard, with only minimum variation permitted.
Our review of compliance reports in 1995 showed that though the existing standard and the amended standard specified a velocity of 30 mph, the tests were regularly being conducted at speeds in a range from 27.6 to 28.7 and that testing at 27 instead of 30 mph generated only 81% as much energy going into the crash. In the case of one car seat, our testing at 30-30.3 mph showed the product failing in a catastrophic manner. We recommended testing be required at 29.7 to 30.3 mph.
· The standard should require safety for most infants who use the product. In particular, NHTSA should revise the amended standard to require that, as described in this petition, certification and compliance tests specify a test dummy corresponding to the 95th -percentile size (rather than 50th percentile) when a maximum age user is recommended.
· Product labeling and recommendations for both height and weight should be consistent with the size of the dummy used in certification and compliance tests.
Only a few weeks after CU filed
the petition with NHTSA in 1995, Dr. Martinez issued a press release stating:
"Because of Consumers Union's announcement that it had rated three models
of child seats as "Not Acceptable," parents across the country understandably
are confused and concerned that the safety seat they are using may not be safe.
I want to set the record straight - parents should have confidence in any safety
seat that meets the federal safety standard. Their safety performance has been
validated time and again in real world crashes. The agency has carefully monitored
their test performance for more than a decade." NHTSA ultimately denied
CU's petition.
To our knowledge, NHTSA has not yet adopted any of the recommendations CU made
in the 1995 petition. Once again, the agency is asking the public for suggestions
to improve the safety of child restraints. We believe the changes in NHTSA's
testing requirements that CU recommended in 1995 remain as valid today as they
were 5 years ago. Clearly this concern has caught the attention of Congress.
Indeed, Senator Peter Fitzgerald, sponsor of the Senate legislation to upgrade
child restraint testing which became part of the TREAD Act, included the following
paragraph in his statement in the October 17, 2000 Congressional Record:
Child restraints are too often marketed for children who are heavier than the anthropomorphic test dummies used by NHTSA in these sled tests. One private group's testing has shown that restraints tested with a child at the highest weight recommended by the manufacturer have failed. NHTSA should allow child restraints to be marketed for children at specific weights only if the restraint has been tested at those weights.
Consumer Reports published
results from the most recent large-scale child restraint testing in January
1999(2). We first tested each seat with a dummy
weighing the maximum listed on the label, at 30 mph. All but five seats did
fine. With four convertible seats the head of the toddler dummy moved forward
farther than the government standard allows. We downrated those seats and retested
them at 28.5 mph. All but one passed at the lower speed. We rated that seat
poor for use with a toddler. With another toddler-booster seat combination tested
at 30 mph with a 40 pound dummy, the maximum child weight specified for use
with its harness, the base cracked and the seatback tore away. We recommended
against using the seat with its harness.
Clearly the same problems exist today as they did in 1995. If the agency is
truly interested in this second strategy of "insuring child restraint systems
that provide optimal protection," it should make the following changes:
Recommendations:
· Revise the standard to require that statements on product labels and packaging indicating maximum "designed for use" weights should not recommend a weight greater than that of the test dummy used in certification and compliance tests. Parents and caregivers have the right to expect adequate performance for children whose weight is less than or equal to the package claims.
· Revise the certification and compliance programs to require a sled speed specified in NHTSA's Laboratory Procedure for Child Restraint System. Testing should match the 30-mph speed specified in the standard, with only minimum variation.
· Revise the amended standard to require that, as described in this petition, certification and compliance tests specify a test dummy corresponding to the 95th percentile size when a maximum age user is recommended.
· Revise labeling requirements of the amended standard to assure that manufacturer-recommended heights and weights for usage of each restraint system are consistent and match certification requirements for that system.
Other Recommendations and Comments
Recommendation: CU believes that the FMVSS No. 213 head injury criteria
should be more stringent, with tolerance limits at the same levels as currently
exist in FMVSS No. 208 for air bag deployment. Those tolerance limits are particularly
encouraging, and we recommend that rulemaking be initiated to upgrade FMVSS
213 immediately to accomplish this goal. In fact, in the Consumer Reports October
2000 Updates report on car seats, we applied the new criteria in our tests of
the FUTURA seat by Fisher Price.
Recommendation: We believe that NHTSA should develop a rating system
for child restraints in an NCAP-like program. Consumer Reports knows from experience
that our readers are hungry for information about the safety and ease of use
of child restraints and would welcome a government testing and information program
that provides them with greater information.
We hasten to point out, however, that we would only support a consumer information
program if NHTSA takes the necessary steps to upgrade its testing procedures
in the manner recommended herein. Without these changes, neither NHTSA nor the
public has any way of knowing how the seat will perform when tested to the limits
at which it is advertised for both height and child weight.
Consumers Union supports the proposal, as suggested by others, that dynamic
testing of child seats should go beyond testing only for frontal crashes, and
should be expanded to dynamic testing for side impact, rear impact and rollover,
as well, since according to NHTSA statistics such crashes cause 70, 26, and
8 children's deaths respectively each year. CU also supports NHTSA's decision
to develop a side impact test procedure for CRS and believes this should include
dynamic testing. We urge the agency to issue an NPRM to develop dynamic side
impact testing requirements.
CU also commends NHTSA for its work to expand the number of dummies used to
test CRS, including the newborn, 6-month-old, 9-month-old, 3-year-old and 6-year-old
dummies used in compliance testing. We support NHTSA's plan to publish an NPRM
to incorporate the CRABI 12-month and Hybrid III 3- and 6-year-old dummies into
FMVSS No. 213 for compliance testing. But we urge the agency to use weight belts
to test the 95th percentile in each category.
As the Safety Plan points out, there are large gaps in the ability to carry
out child restraint testing. With boosters recommended for children up to 80
pounds, yet with no test dummy larger than the 47-pound 6-year dummy nor smaller
than the 105-lb 5th percentile female dummy, testing child seats for older,
heavier children is impossible to do accurately. Manufacturers nevertheless
advertise their seats as safe for children at higher weights and ages. CU's
position on labeling a seat as safe at a higher weight than that which it is
tested to FMVSS No. 213 is clear and is set out above: NHTSA should not allow
it.
CU urges NHTSA's to speed up its work with the Society of Automotive Engineers
in developing the 10-year-old dummy. Meanwhile, CU strongly supports NHTSA's
decision, in the absence of a 10-year-old dummy, to consider using a weighted
jacket for the 6-year-old dummy. This will provide a far more accurate test
for the strength of booster seats labeled as safe for bigger, heavier children.
CU, as NHTSA engineers know, uses weighted jackets in our own testing when there
is no dummy heavy enough to be tested at the level at which the seat is labeled;
we have urged NHTSA to require manufacturers to do the same. The agency has
rejected our suggestions set out in our 1995 petition to the agency (see discussion,
supra). We are encouraged by indications that NHTSA may have had a change of
heart on this important truth-in-advertising and safety concern.
As noted earlier, Consumers Union enthusiastically supports the adoption of
a single standardized system such as LATCH for installing child seats in cars,
minivans and light trucks. We believe that consumers have long needed a simpler,
more fool-proof system for restraining their children, and with full implementation
of that rule by September, 2002, we expect to see fewer children at risk when
they are restrained in complying seats. CU also supports NHTSA's intention to
evaluate the effectiveness of the LATCH system and looks forward to the release
next year of NHTSA's study on injuries to children sustained in side, rear,
and rollover crashes.
Child Restraint Recalls
The Safety Plan estimates that recall completion in child safety seat recalls,
of which there have been 23 since 1996 involving 4.7 million seats, has increased
to 50%, currently. While this is greatly improved since the 24% level of 1993,
and while we understand that reaching 100% recall completion may not be realistic,
CU also believes NHTSA should pursue all strategies to improve recall completion
to a far greater extent.
Recommendation: To improve on this already rigorous system, we urge NHTSA to
require manufacturers to offer incentives to consumers to register their child
safety seats, such as a gift certificate for every 100th card sent in or coupons
for future purchases.
Child restraint recall completion rates are better than with many other consumer
products.(3) We attribute that record to the agency's
requirements that car seat manufacturers insert a simple postage-paid registration
card with every car seat purchased. This card foregoes asking for the sweeping
information often requested by warranty cards in consumer products, seeking
instead only basic information like serial and model numbers of the product,
and the consumer's contact information, and informing consumers to fill the
card out immediately and stating that the information will be used to contact
the consumer in the event of a car seat recall. Consumers are more likely to
return a card when they understand that the information will be used for safety
purposes only. Manufacturers are also required to keep records of the names
and addresses of those who have registered for a period of six years.(4)
III. Provide Consumers With Useful Information
Consumer Information Programs
This Safety Plan notes that NHTSA will develop a CRS performance rating program
by evaluating the results of dynamic sled testing and the full-scale vehicle
testing incorporated into NCAP. Consumer Reports also rates child restraints,
as noted above, and believes consumers would benefit from the kind of consumer
information program NHTSA would likely provide.
We applaud the use of such consumer information programs because they serve
two functions: a) they give consumers reliable and accurate information about
the product so they can make rational choices for their families, and b) they
encourage manufacturers to improve the product. NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program
(NCAP) is a good example. Over a million consumers each year learn about side
and frontal crashworthiness of vehicles that they're considering leasing or
buying and compare vehicle "star" ratings. Moreover, publishers like
Consumers Union give the information broad exposure to millions of consumers.
The NCAP program also rewards manufacturers by giving them the chance to earn
higher scores for safety improvement. Many safety experts credit the NCAP program
with effectively inducing the automakers to build more crashworthy cars.(5)
Despite the complaints of the auto industry, the crashworthiness scores of U.S.
cars have improved dramatically in the 20 years since the government started
publicizing the test results. Hence, we support the creation of a NHTSA consumer
information program for child restraints and share the following information
from our own child restraint testing experience.
CU's Child Restraint Testing and Rating Program
Because Consumers Union and Consumer Reports has been reporting on child
restraints for over 25 years and is the only organization that currently tests
and rates car seats, we believe it will be valuable to share some information
on our methodology. As noted above, our last major(6)
series of tests was reported in the January 1999 issue of the magazine, when
we tested and rated 28 seats for infants, toddlers, and children. We tested
all seats for the crash protection they provided, their ease of use, the ability
to properly install the seat with different seatbelt configurations with and
without a base, and in the case of the infant seats that are sold with strollers,
we tested the strollers for safety, durability and convenience. These scores
appear on three charts, allowing consumers to compare the scores among the seats
tested. We choose which seats to test based on their popularity and availability.
We look for compliance with the criteria NHTSA has established for chest G's,
head injury criteria, head excursion, knee excursion, and for infant seats,
back angle. We rate seats within a six category range for these criteria: Not
Acceptable, Poor, Fair, Good, Very good and Excellent.
Not Acceptable - Car seats that suffer a catastrophic failure or fail
to meet, by a substantial margin, one or more of the dynamic impact-related
NHTSA requirements when subject to a simulated NHTSA crash test run at the lowest
speed allowed by NHTSA using the dummy weights specified by NHTSA. (No car seats
were found "Not Acceptable" in our last full report.)
Poor - Car seats that just barely failed to meet one or more of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a simulated NHTSA crash test run at the lowest speed allowed by NHTSA using the dummy weights specified by NHTSA. Also, car seats with crash test performance that, for whatever reason, falls below that needed for a Fair rating, but above what would warrant a Not Acceptable rating.
Fair - Car seats that meet all of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a simulated NHTSA crash test run at the lowest speed allowed by NHTSA using the dummy weights specified by NHTSA, but that do not meet one or more of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a simulated NHTSA crash test run at the lowest speed allowed by NHTSA using the dummy weights specified by NHTSA. Additional weight in the form of weight vests is added to the NHTSA dummies in order to increase the dummy's weight to match the manufacturer's claimed maximum for the seat.
Good - Car seats that meet, but do not appreciably exceed, all of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a simulated NHTSA crash test run at approximately 30 mph (the actual NHTSA speed specification) using dummy weights that correspond to the actual maximum weight specified for the seat by the car seat manufacturers. Additional weight in the form of weight vests are added to the NHTSA dummies in order to increase the dummy's weight to match the manufacturer's claimed maximum for the seat.
Very Good - Car seats that appreciably exceed all of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a crash test that is similar to the NHTSA crash test run at approximately 30 mph (the actual NHTSA speed specification) using dummy weights that correspond to the actual maximum weight specified for the seat by the car seat manufacturer. Additional weight in the form of weight vests are added tot he NHTSA dummies that would normally be used in order to increase the dummy's weight to match the manufacturer's claimed maximum for the seat.
Excellent - Car seats that substantially exceed all of the dynamic impact-related NHTSA requirements when subject to a crash test that is similar to the NHTSA crash test run at approximately 30 mph (the actual NHTSA speed specification) using dummy weights that correspond to the actual maximum weight specified for the seat by the car seat manufacturer. Additional weight in the form of weight vests are added to the NHTSA dummies that would normally be used in order to increase the dummy's weight to match the manufacturer's claimed maximum of the seat.
Leg room for infants in Rear Facing
Seats
Recommendation: Consumer Reports has received feedback from its readers
suggesting that parents switch their children to front-facing seats too early
because there is insufficient leg room for their children one year and in rear
facing seats. We note that NHTSA's Safety Plan does not address the fact that
there is insufficient leg room in rear facing seats. To address this concern,
we recommend that NHTSA send letters to manufacturers requesting that they begin
to design seats to accommodate leg room both for those one year and younger,
but also keeping in mind that some one year olds do not meet the 20-22 pound
limit and that many rear facing convertible seats now accommodate children in
excess of 22 pounds. One parent commented that leg injuries are preferable to
head injuries. Expansion of leg room would help insure that children can comfortably
ride in the rear-facing seats until they are old enough to be safely switched
into forward-facing child restraints.
Among NHTSA's other recommendations for providing consumers with useful information,
we particularly like the agency's plan to better train hotline operators to
provide consumers with more detailed information on compliance tests (we believe
consumers are hungry for more information on NHTSA's testing of Child Restraints),
and the continuation of the interactive web page, Safety City, for young people.
Conclusion
We believe NHTSA's Child Restraint System Safety Plan sets out an effective
roadmap for increasing the quality and level of protection for children in car
seats. We urge NHTSA to adopt the recommendations of CU and other consumer and
safety organizations who have ongoing communications with parents and caregivers
concerned with the purchase and proper use of child restraints.
Children are our most precious possessions. The preventable injury or fatality
of even one child is a tragedy causing needless heartache and despair. We support
the collective effort to take every step possible, through testing, information,
laws and regulations, to insure our children are safe when traveling on America's
roads and highways. We look forward to working with NHTSA to bring these proposals
and recommendations to fruition.
December 22, 2000
Respectfully submitted,
David Pittle
Senior Vice President and Technical Director
Consumers Union
(914) 378-2000
Sally Greenberg
Senior Product Safety Counsel
Consumers Union Washington
DC Office
(202) 462-6262
John Galeotafiore
Director of Testing
Recreation and Home Improvement
Consumers Union
(914) 378-2000
David Champion
Director, Automotive Testing
Consumers Union
(860) 537-0763
_____
Footnotes:
(1) Consumers
Union is a nonprofit membership organization chartered in 1936 under the laws
of the state of New York to provide consumers with information, education and
counsel about good, services, health and personal finance; and to initiate and
cooperate with individual and group efforts to maintain and enhance the quality
of life for consumers. Consumers Union's income is solely derived from the sale
of Consumer Reports, its other publications and from noncommercial contributions,
grants and fees. In addition to reports on Consumers Union's own product testing,
Consumer Reports with more than 4 million paid circulation, regularly, carries
articles on health, product safety, marketplace economics and legislative, judicial
and regulatory actions which affect consumer welfare. Consumers Union's publications
carry no advertising and receive no commercial support.
(2) The Air Bag Safety Campaign released NHTSA figures in February 1998 showing
that when the driver is buckled, restraint use for toddlers is 86%. When the
driver is unbuckled, restraint use for toddlers drops to 23%. A study conducted
by Colorado's Department of Transportation found that when the driver is buckled,
belt use for children age 4-15 is 72%. When the driver is unbuckled, belt use
for this same age group drops to 11%.
(3) See Consumer Reports,
September 1995. 22 of the tested models performed well. The three models that
failed were the Century 590, the Evenflo On My Way 206 infant seats, and the
Kolcraft Traveler 700 convertible seat for infants and small children. Kolcraft
and Evenflo recalled their seats. Century continued to deny there were safety
problems with the seat. Consumer Reports tested three car seats that claimed
to offer enhanced safety features and extended use in October 2000. On average
70-90% of recalled products are never repaired or returned, according to BNA's
Product Safety & Liability Reporter, 8-27-99.
(4) 49 CFR Parts 571 and 588, Child Restraint Systems.
(5) "We know manufacturers are paying attention to these crash tests results,
and what we are seeing in general are crashworthiness improvements when automakers
redesign their vehicles." Statement of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
President Brian O'Neill, Automotive News, July 3, 2000.
(6) We had outside laboratories perform crash tests similar to the government's,
strapping the dummies of various sizes into seats placed on a rig that was run
through a simulated head-on collision. We pointed out once again, however, that
government car-seat crash tests often use dummy weights less than the maximum
the manufacturer specifies as appropriate on the label for that seat. We also
noted that though the standard specifies a 30-mph test, the test can be run
as low as 28 mph.
