Tag: Ken Saczalski

Regulators, automakers urged to warn parents about flawed seats

By Myron Levin
FairWarning
For decades, safety regulators and the auto industry have known that even in a moderate speed rear-end crash a driver or front seat passenger can slide out of the seat belt and be launched headfirst into the backseat, badly injuring a backseat passenger or being paralyzed or killed himself. Since the 1990s, authorities have instructed parents to put young children in the backseat to avoid injury from an inflating airbag. But critics say they have failed to provide another crucial piece of information: Due to the risk of seat failure in a rear collision, the safest place for a child is behind an unoccupied seat, or else behind the lightest person in the front.