A lack of child-sized crash test dummies for youngsters 65 to 85 pounds has created an auto safety regulatory void, preventing federal experts from evaluating the performance of kids’ car seats.
As the The Washington Post reports, the result is that kids in that weight range often use seats that are not subject to rigorous federal guidelines, leavings parents’ reliant on manufacturers’ safety assurances.
For instance, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency charged with carrying out crash testing, has not measured whether a 65-pound child in a car seat would overload the tether and anchor system that is supposed to lock the youngster into place in the event of an accident.
The issue is a concern to organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has asked the NHTSA to step up efforts to design a dummy that would enable regulators to evaluate the impact of crash forces on children’s heads.
Although regulators have successfully used crash dummies to evaluate the effects of accidents on adults, developing models that accurately replicate the impact on children has proved elusive. The NHTSA has made three attempts in the past six years to manufacture a dummy that approximates an 85-pound child. However, in each case, design shortcomings have limited the dummies’ usefulness.
The agency says it hopes to have a more realistic dummy in use by 2013, and also will develop a model that will allow for side-impact crash tests, which currently are not conducted for car seats.
“This administration is clearly interested in getting this issue resolved,” Ronald Medford, deputy administrator of the NHTSA, told the Post. “It’s taking longer than we’d like. We would really like to see improvements to the dummy so we can use it to its fullest potential.”
