What Are The Safest Car Seats?

In order for any car seat to be sold in the United States, the product must pass safety ratings and crash tests.

It's not possible to determine the safest car seats based on these tests, because the manufacturers aren't required to make the test results available--and so they never will. Still, we can at least be confident that each car seat sold in the United States matches or even exceeds governmental requirements.

That's why we have Consumer Reports, which tests car seats and their effectiveness in car crashes. However, it's worth noting that scientists have often discounted these tests for reasons such as past mistakes, and also for what they see as poor parameters and poor reporting. However, Consumer Reports is still a good place to start.

Although Consumer Reports had shared its top picks over the years, remember that even the safest car seat in the world isn't going to be very safe at all if you use it improperly. If it isn't properly installed and used each and every time the child is in the car, of course it's not reliable.

Consumer Reports' most recent test included eleven rear-facing infant car seats. It was a retest of the previous year's test, which had some errors. All eleven seats met governmental crash test standards when attached using the seat belt and when using the LATCH.

LATCH, by the way, stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children. In any case, the United States' pass-or-fail test failed to give us any idea of the "best" and "worst" car seats.

Consumer Reports addresses this problem by trying to identify the safest car seats. They do it by rating the car seats on Ease of Use and Fit to Vehicle. These two things will have an enormous impact on the safety of car seats.

If it doesn't fit in the car properly, it's impossible to install it safely, and the harder a car seat is to install, the more likely that someone will not have it properly and safely installed.

With these guidelines in mind, Consumer Reports determined that Chicco Key Fit was the best, safest car seat. Britax Companion came in second place.

At the same time, Consumer Reports rated Baby Trend Flex-Loc and Graco SnugRide as the Best Buys. This accounts for the features you get for the price.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

Before you buy a car seat make sure to visit Car Seat Reviews to find in-depth reviews on the Best Car Seats and other Car Seat Ratings.

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