Can You Ise Pontiac Seats in Rear of Car

'We strongly recommend all children should travel rear-faced until the age of three, and preferably four'. Professor Lotta Jakobsson

No parent would deliberately choose a seat that puts their child at risk but conflicting safety messages has made it difficult to know which type of car seat is best.

New research, commissioned by Volvo Car UK, reveals rear-facing car seats are better at absorbing impact in high-speed crash scenarios. It found that in Sweden, where children typically sit in rear-facing car seats until age 4, no children under the age of six had died in a car in 2013 , with 10 children suffering serious injuries. In the UK, by comparison, there were 77 deaths and injuries in total among child passengers under the age of four.

The majority of parents questioned by Volvo (71%) change their child to a front-facing seat before their baby reaches nine or 12 months – most usually because their child has outgrown their first seat but also so their child can look out the window and parents can see their child's face. Yet after hearing of the benefits of rear facing seats, 72% of respondents say they would be more likely to choose rear-facing child seats in the future.

Professor Lotta Jakobsson, Adj. Prof., Ph.D, is Senior Technical Specialist at the Injury Prevention Volvo Cars Safety Centre and believes the longer a child can sit in a rear-facing car seat the better.
'We strongly recommend everyone to have a rear-facing child seat for their young children. All children should travel rear-faced until the age of three, and preferably four'.

In an ideal – if impossible - world, Professor Jacobsson says even adults would sit backwards, for the safest drive, because bodies in a frontal impact collision, are thrown forward, particularly the head, at considerable force. The momentum propels the head downwards onto the breastbone and then back up again. While adult necks are more able to withstand this strain, a small child's neck can't.

Explaining her position Professor Jakobsson cites the anatomical differences between adults and infants:
'Children are not small adults: a baby's head is very heavy and the neck muscles are weaker because they are not developed fully and so head injuries in a crash would be much more severe. A child's pelvis is also weak and underdeveloped up to six years old and their legs are proportionally shorter'

Babies and young children's heads make up 25% of their total body weight compared to just 6% for an adult, which explains why they are so much more susceptible to neck fractures and damage to the brain and spinal cord in a car crash.

'Research shows a child in a rearward facing seat would sink into the back of the seat rather than go forward. The design [of rearward] is more forgiving – for example if the harnesses aren't tightened properly it is still more robust than front-facing seats,' adds Professor Jakobsson.

However, Professor Jakobsson admitted that many children don't like sitting in rear-facing car seats and a parent faced with strapping their child into a bar seat – albeit a forward-facing one – is safer than a child refusing to sit in anything.

Volvo recommends all children under the age of three, and ideally up to four, travel in a rear-facing seat.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) recommends that babies should sit in rearward-facing baby seats until they are at least 6kgs and can sit unaided – though it adds in its guidance that parents should keep their children in rear-facing set for as long as possible before using a frontward-facing car seat.

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Can You Ise Pontiac Seats in Rear of Car

Source: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/consumer-advice/car-advice/a551228/whats-better-front-or-rear-facing-child-car-seats/

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