The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed side-impact testing for car seats sold for use by children weighing up to 40 pounds. These tests are part of an upgrade to the federal motor vehicle safety standard for child-restraint systems that NHTSA hopes will protect children in side crashes.
The proposed side-impact testing should prevent 5 deaths and 64 injuries of young children each year, according to NHTSA.
“We are looking to car manufacturers to embrace this new testing that will save young lives,” said attorney Fred Pritzker, who represents children and their families throughout the United States in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits against manufacturers. “The number of recalls affecting child restraints suggests more testing needs to be done to keep children safe. Parents expect car seats to protect their children from serious injury and death, and manufacturers have a duty to make sure that happens.”
In the proposed side-impact test, car seats must demonstrate they can safely restrain a child by preventing harmful head contact with an intruding vehicle door and reducing the crash forces transmitted to the child’s head and chest. The test would be a simulated t-bone crash, where the front of a vehicle traveling at 30 miles per hour would hit the side of a car traveling at 15 miles per hour. The test would use a 12-month-old child dummy and a newly developed 3-year-old child dummy.
Attorneys Fred Pritzker and Eric Hageman are our lead lawyers for these cases. They have won millions for children and families, including several multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts. You can contact Fred and his team at 1-888-377-8900 (toll free).