Defective Child Restraints, Defective Car Seats, Auto Accidents

Defective child restraints and car seats can result in needless personal injuries or fatalities to children that are occupants of vehicles during auto accidents. Lawsuits against manufacturers of defective child restraints and car seats have increased during the last few years as information has become known that these manufacturers have set low standards for design specifications. Defective child restraints and car seats are an important part of crashworthiness during auto accidents.

The importance of proper use and design of child safety seats is now well documented from repeated tests and accident reports. If a child seat allows the child to hit the interior car surface in front of the child or allows the child to be ejected from the vehicle, serious injury or death can occur to the child. If child restraints are not designed properly, then during a rear-end collision, the child can slide up and back, causing injuries to the back and spine and potentially ejecting the child from the back of the vehicle. For front-end collisions, an improperly designed car seat can cause the child to slide down and forward in the seat, causing injuries to the head and neck. The lawyers of the Law Offices of Pat Maloney are skilled San Antonio personal injury lawyers who have experience in cases of defective child restraints and defective car seats that result in personal injuries during auto accidents.

Child Restraint and Child Seat Standards

Between 1990 and 1999, over 17,000 children under the age of 10 were killed in traffic accidents, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Minimal federal requirements and poor design quality of the child restraints and car seats have contributed to these fatalities. The primary standard for car seat design is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 213. This standard was issued in 1970 and outlines the minimum performance of the child safety restraints. It is important to note that FMVSS 213 is not a design standard, it is a performance standard. The car seat companies can design car seats any way they like, as long as the design meets the minimum performance standard. Clearly, as with any engineering design of safety equipment, some designs provide much more safety, even if all other designs also pass the minimum requirements.

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Low Standards by Car Seat Manufacturers

Unfortunately, some manufacturers of child restraints and car seats have established their design standards to meet only the minimum requirement set by FMVSS, a 30 year old standard that has not been updated. Manufacturers perform their own tests and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) does not verify the test results or conduct independent evaluation of the child safety restraints or car seats. This lack of regulatory process allows the manufacturers to implement designs based on factors, such as manufacturing cost, as opposed to safety. Millions of car child safety seats have been recalled due to a variety of defects.

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Types of Car Seats

There are five types of car seats

• infant rear-facing seats
• convertible seats
• forward-facing seats
• booster seats
• integrated seats (built in to the vehicle)

Each of the types of car seats is designed for a specific size and weight of the child. It is important from a child safety standpoint, that whoever is transporting the child, that the correct child seat is used for the size and weight of the child.

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Child Restraint and Car Seat Defects

Just like with defective seat belt designs, a defective child restraint or car seat can fail and cause serious personal injury because of just one or from a combination of design flaws. The most common flaws include inadequate lateral support, inadequate strength of shell material, inadequate warning labels, confusion instructions, defective harness system, lack of torso restraint, incorrect weight and size classifications, weakened attachment of the shell to the vehicle, difficulty in adjustment, etc. Typical injuries include head injury, paralysis, spinal cord injury, brain injury and death.

If a child has been injured or killed due to the inadequate design of a child restraint or car seat, then the child and the child's family may be entitled to compensation from the car seat manufacturer.

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