Posted on 10/28/2007 6:01:06 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(They're designed to enhance children's safety, but unsecured, unoccupied seats can become dangerous projectiles in a high-speed crash)
George Clark clicked his seat-belt buckle and relaxed in the back seat of his friend's car as they headed home from a Boy Scout leader training weekend in Kiel.
It was a warm June afternoon, and Clark, 52, chatted with the other two dads sitting up front.
Clark paid no attention to the empty booster seat beside him.
Then a car darted across the highway in front of them and they hit it, going close to 50 mph.
Clark doesn't remember what happened during the impact. But severe injuries to the left side of his head and face indicate the unsecured booster seat became airborne and bashed into him, pulverizing his cheekbone, shattering his jaw and causing other injuries.
Before the crash, Clark, of Mequon, had never considered a booster seat to be a hazard. When his kids were small, child safety seats were always secured to the car. He doesn't remember having booster seats, which first hit store shelves in 1991.
Nothing on the booster seat next to him that June afternoon - no warning label or anything - suggested it should be belted to the car, he said.
Though some safety experts say it amounts to common sense, buckling in an empty booster seat isn't the first thing many drivers or passengers consider.
"It's something people don't think about," said Lynn Clark, George's wife. "This should go on Good Morning America to tell the world (booster seats) can become projectiles and seriously hurt people."
As laws change requiring children to stay in booster seats until they're as old as 8, the likelihood of such injuries will increase - unless parents become aware of the danger and fasten the seat belt even when their child isn't in the car, experts say.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not keep data on how often people are injured by unsecured booster seats or even on how often people are hurt by any loose cargo.
But researchers have found that in a collision, especially a frontal one, unrestrained cargo flies forward with a force exponentially greater than its weight. At 55 mph, a 20-pound parcel exceeds 1,000 pounds of force. A can of peas or the family pet can cause serious injury or even death.
Anecdotally, injuries from airborne booster seats are on safety officials' radars, experts say.
"It's an issue that's grabbed enough attention to change the way they do training," said Matt Wolfe, a highway safety specialist with the Transportation Safety Institute, an arm of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
People who teach firefighters and other child-restraint safety technicians are instructing them to teach parents to be sure to remove the booster seat when it's not in use or buckle it up, Wolfe said.
Graco, one of the country's largest makers of booster seats and other children's products, says it does instruct motorists not to leave a booster seat in the car unfastened.
"Graco clearly states in the car seat's instruction manual that the seat needs to be secured in the car when not in use," says spokeswoman Stacy Becker, in a written statement. "The car seat itself does not include this labeling."
The P.I. Team found that the same goes for Evenflo, Eddie Bauer, Cosco, Safety 1st and most other popular booster seat brands. The only booster seat maker the team could find that posted a warning on the seat was Compass brand, a division of Learning Curve Brands based in Oak Brook, Ill.
Learning Curve officials say they solicit input from child safety advocates when designing products, which accounts for why they have the warning label on their product.
"We give them a crack at it before we ever launch a product," said John Riedl, the company's vice president of infant gear. "They (safety experts) know that anything in the car that is not anchored can be a projectile, so it's something we naturally thought to include."
Cedarburg mom Monika Seefeld wishes warning labels were pasted to all seats.
Her two booster seats were passed down to her by her brother and sister. She didn't get the instruction manuals.
In May last year Seefeld was in a head-on collision. She had just dropped off her two older kids - both of whom sat in booster seats - and was driving with her 2-year-old son, Tyler.
Upon impact, both booster seats went flying in the passenger compartment. Tyler was struck in the face, and his nose was broken. Scar tissue built up to such a degree that he struggles to breathe through his nose and needs surgery, Seefeld said.
"I wish I would have known about it," Seefeld, 37, said. "Nobody ever told me. I never really heard of it, and after my accident I warned some people that we should be buckling in the empty booster seats and they were like 'I never thought of that.' Virtually 100 percent of the mothers I talked to didn't do that."
George Clark, too, wishes he had known better.
Nearly five months after getting severely battered by a loose booster seat, Clark is awaiting yet another surgery.
Already his medical bills have topped $60,000, and he still needs work on his jaw and teeth. Clark hopes his insurance will cover the costs, but he doesn't know for sure.
"If I had known it could have been a problem, I clearly would have suggested that maybe we want to take the seat out of the car," he said.
Exactly. This article should be news to no one.
It isn't rocket science, and it isn't surprising, hidden, or the fault of the booster seat.
It is the fault of the dummy who left unsecured stuff in his car and the reporter who wrote the article mean to alarm rather than inform.
"Keep your car clean" is the lesson to walk away with, not "avoid booster seats".
Any first year physics student will tell you that there is no such thing as “deceleration”. There is only “acceleration” in any direction. Deceleration is like “ungravity”. No such animal.
F= 1/2 MV^2 is a square-law function of velocity.
Not exactly, a square law is not exponential, but my point was more that saying a force is exponentially greater than its weight doesn’t really compute in any kind of way. Force could be an exponential _function_ of weight (which it’s not, it’s a parabolic f’n of speed), but the way the author wrote it obscures even that intended meaning.
The reporter did get one thing right, that weight is a type of force.
Generally, no one confused reporters with being science-hard people...
And I’m a fool for writing a force=energy equation without thinking about it.
Kids need to sit in the back seat...
I know that seatbelts can't guarantee survival in auto collisions. But every time I read about teens or young adults killed in auto accidents, almost always they weren't wearing seatbelts and were thrown from the vehicle. Of course many times they were crushed by the vehicle they were a passenger in.
I seem to remember a box of kleenex as not being real dangerous, but a few grocery items (bottles of ketchup? etc.) as being very dangerous. Obviously the more weight the more danger.
Not the fault of the nanny state. The fault of the ninny who somehow didn’t realize that ANY unsecured object is dangerous.
A seatbelt can injure you, but I ALWAYS use mine.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Sorta like being a Democrat vs. Republican and getting caught with your grubbies in the cookie jar...
I’ve thought about that because I’m petite (5’3” and 108 pounds). My friend’s minivan has a passenger side airbag that turns off when I’m in the seat. Doesn’t make me feel too safe.
My car...Subaru Forester...has a sensor that turns the passenger airbag off 65 pounds and under. I guess because of the height/weight of a young child the force of the bag can be fatal.
Makes me wonder about my own safety!
And yes here in Wisconsin they will list whether the crash victims were wearing seatbelts or not. But getting thrown from a vehicle is far more dangerous than being strapped in. Especially if passengers are riding in suvs or other large vehicles.
LOL! My parents carted us around in those tin-can Volkswagon Beetles. We used to put the baby in that far back cubbie-hole right above the engine block. It was nice and warm there, and since we were never rear-ended, that “baby” is now 45 years old. :)
We rode our bikes, rollerskated, skateboarded, etc. without the least hit of helmets and padding.
My folks smoked like fiends around us kids. We ate a lot of red meat and lard. I had a slingshot and an air rifle and a pocket knife.
Go figure.
My wife is 5'0" and about 100 (so small that I sometimes can't locate her at 2AM on the queensized bed :)
Anyway I read some more material starting at Wikipedia and found that (a) the number of all deaths/injuries from this situation (even counting children) seems to be quite miniscule, like less than 100 annually (it might have been several year period, don;t recall); (b) so long as the seatbelt naturally positions on the hips/pelvis, across the ribcage, and the person is sitting with back against the seat with knees naturally bent at the front edge of the seat, it seems to be OK. Also face should be minimum of 10 inches from airbag deployment compartment on dash (for driver as well).
I'll double-check next time she's in the car, but I think wifey is safe.
She’s fortunate to have such a caring hubby! ;-)
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