Car seat safety?

Did you hear the report that Consumer Reports published in early January (technically in the February edition of their magazine)? The report claimed that of 12 infant rear-facing car seats that they tested, 10 of them catastrophically failed when subjected to the same side-impact tests that cars must endure. Apparently car-seats must withstand 30 mph frontal crash tests. However, a car must be able to endure a 38.5 mph side-impact crash. Consumer Reports claimed that 10 of the 12 seats they tested couldn't withstand the additional 8.5 mph.

The car seat we bought Kiddo (well, it was given by Grandma, but we picked it out) was one of the ones that was tested and failed. When I read the full report on the CR website, I found out that the seat failed when it was installed with the LATCH system, but did okay when it was installed with a seatbelt. I talked with C about it and we decided that we would install the seat using both the LATCH system and the seatbelt. Since the seat performed satisfactorily with a seatbelt, this seemed to be an okay solution. (We decided to do both, because I think the seat actually stays put better with the LATCH system.)

Now Consumer Reports is recalling their report. You can read the CR press release here. The report I read on CNN.com gives more information (read it here). CNN quotes an NHTSA spokesman as saying "the organization's data show its side-impact tests were actually conducted under conditions that would represent being struck in excess of 70 mph, twice as fast as the group claimed; [...] When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing dramatically."

Now Consumer Reports is urging consumers "to suspend judgment on the merits of individual products until the new testing has been completed and the report re-published."

It will be interesting to see what the legal fall out will be, if any. In any case, I'm glad we didn't rush out to buy a new car seat.