Most parents are responsible for the safety of their children and take all the steps they can to prevent their children from getting hurt unnecessarily. In terms of vehicle safety, this means buying an age-appropriate car seat that provides the maximum amount of protection in a vehicle collision. But how do parents know which kind of seat is best?
Fortunately, there are a lot of guidelines that parents can rely on when selecting the right car seat for their children. One important guideline relates to rearward-facing car seats versus frontward-facing car seats. According to most safety experts, if a toddler is below the age of 3, parents can rely on the fact that a rearward-facing design is the safest. Not only that but a new safety report by the Ohio State University Injury Biomechanics Research Center, confirms the superiority of the rear-facing design in terms of protection from injuries.
It has long been held that rear-facing car seats were better for small children, but scientists had only tested the safety of the seats in front and side crashes. Until Ohio State University published its recent findings, no one knew if the seats stood up to muster in the case of a rear-impact crash. Much to every parent’s relief, the reward-facing seats showed that they were the safest choice for young children in rear-impact crashes.
If you’re the parent of a young child who suffered a serious car accident injury, you might want to consider – in addition to the at-fault drivers who may have caused the collision – all other potentially liable parties. These parties might be other adults who were supervising the safety of your child at the time of the collision, potentially negligent car seat manufacturers and others depending on the facts and circumstances surrounding the crash.
Source: Jordan Times, “Crash tests confirm safety of rear-facing car seats in rear impact collisions,” April 05, 2018