All posts by Mike

No Fatalities Case Study: Minivan (Odyssey) vs. Car Crash

Who:

An unidentified woman and child were driving a 2007 pewter Honda Odyssey around 5/22/14 in Omaha, Nebraska, when they were side impacted by an individual trying to beat a yellow light a silver Dodge Charger. The impact was on the passenger’s side of the Odyssey. There were no fatalities or injuries in the Odyssey. The condition of the Charger driver was unavailable.

How:

Per the husband, the wife was waiting at an intersection to make a left turn with the light turning from yellow to red. An individual attempted to beat the yellow or red light and impacted the Odyssey on the passenger’s side. Per the husband, the child sat in the right seat of the middle row, and both the child and wife walked out of the vehicle without any injuries.


Why:

Fortunately, in this case, there were no fatalities. Who caused the collision is unclear, although it was clearly due to the refusal of or both individuals to yield to either oncoming traffic or to a red light. Fortunately, the relatively low speeds of the collision and the strong structural design of the Odyssey prevented fatalities or serious injuries.

The 2007 Odyssey weighs ~4365 lbs and has a “good” side score. It comes with head and torso side airbags in the front seats and head bags for all three rows. Its structural subscore was “acceptable,” with another “acceptable” score for the rear passenger torso. The 2011-era Charger weighs ~3961 lbs and comes with a “good” front score.

Given the likely speeds of the collision (I’ll estimate ~35 mph, based on front damage to the Charger), the collision likely imparted at least 220KJ of energy into the Odyssey / Charger. The standard side impact test simulates 143KJ of energy (a 3300-lb sled impacting a vehicle at 31 mph). In other words, the Odyssey faced 154% of the force it would have experienced in the types of crashes cars are side rated for. Given these forces and the side score of the vehicle, the Odyssey occupants were virtually guaranteed to walk away from this collision, and they did.

Such a case illustrates the importance of choosing a vehicle with a “good” side impact score. However, it also illustrates the importance of speed in such collisions. Had the Charger been traveling at only 10 mph faster at 45 mph, it would have imparted 65% more energy into the Odyssey, at 363KJ, despite only traveling 29% faster. I would still have expected the Odyssey occupants to have survived such a collision, but in such a collision, the driver would likely have faced significant injuries and the child may have faced serious injuries or worse.

Vehicles with side airbags and good side scores give you a fighting chance in collisions like these.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Best Car Seats to Buy on Amazon’s Black Friday Sales

Something neat about this part of the year is that Amazon likes to discount car seats as we get closer to the Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday. This is a good time to pick up a car seat or two that you might have been considering, especially if you know you’ll need one in the next several months or would like to gift one (or several) to family members.

That said, if you’re interested in buying a car seat this holiday season, you’ll want to make sure you’re getting a quality seat, and not just any you find on sale. Fortunately, running a car seat blog means I’m always up for talking about my most recommended car seats. Here are some of my favorite convertibles, infant, and booster seats of the moment, along with my reviews and personal thoughts on the merit of each seat. Good luck shopping and safe travels as we approach the winter months.

In a hurry? You can read all of my reviews of recommended car seats here.
Convertible Seats

  

The Graco Size4Me 65 – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Graco Head Wise 70 – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Maxi-Cosi Pria 85 – Review Here, Buy Here.

Graco has been making quality convertible seats for years, but they really struck gold with their Size4Me 65 clones. I’ve already described the Size4Me family as my favorite convertible car seat under $200, and that’s absolutely still the case. The Head Wise 70 is worth the price difference, especially when it’s so small during Black Friday time, as it adds a good amount of side impact protection that also has the benefit of making the seat more comfortable. I’m also a fan of the Pria 85, although it’s not as good of a deal as the Gracos, which are phenomenally priced right now. If you buy nothing else today, buy those. You’ll thank me later when the prices shoot up again.

  

The Britax Advocate ClickTight – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Britax Marathon ClickTight – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Britax Boulevard ClickTight – Review Here, Buy Here.

I’ve got to admit it. I’m a fan of the new Britax ClickTight line. They make it easy to get safe and secure seat belt installations and come with some of the best levels of side impact protection currently available. They all rear-face until 40 pounds and are three of the best seats on the market right now when it comes to ease of installation and usability. Personally, I find the Boulevard to be the sweet spot in value of the three, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them.

Infant Seats
  
The Chicco KeyFit 30 – Review Here, Buy Here.
The UPPAbaby MESA – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Peg Perego Primo Viaggio 4-35 – Review Here, Buy Here.

 

When it comes to infant seats, I’m pretty picky, but Chicco, UPPAbaby, and Peg Perego have earned my trust by putting out consistently good infant seats for years on end, and the KeyFit 30, MESA, and 4-35 are no exception. When you buy an infant seat, you’re looking for one that’s easy to install and easy to remove, as the number one goal when living with a young infant is to keep him or her sleeping as long as possible. I’ve lived through it, and a good infant seat makes those first few sleepless months just a little bit easier to get through.

Booster / Combination Seats
 
The Britax Frontier 90 – Review Here, Buy Here.
The Britax Pinnacle 90 – Review Here, Buy Here.
Britax is running on all cylinders when it comes to their combination seats, which actually do a better job of fitting children throughout the booster years than any other booster seats on the market right now. If you’re in the market for either a combination (front-facing harnessed) seat or a booster seat right now, these are the two best choices. Remember, of course, that children actually need to be boostered until they’re close to 12, even if you see lots of children much younger in seat belts. When you know better, you do better.
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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

No Fatalities: Megan Ogden, 38, in Biddeford, NH, Drunk Crash

pilot - 2009 - publicdomainWho:

Megan H. Ogden, 38, of Arundel, drove her 2011 Honda Pilot at around 3 PM on 2/3/14 westbound on Alewive Road, close to Kennebunk Elementary, and caused a single vehicle collision. She was injured, as were her two children, aged 7 and 9.

How:

Megan was westbound and close to the elementary school when she drove the Pilot off the road, between a pair of trees, and into a rock retaining wall. She then rolled the Pilot  and the vehicle ended up upright. She then drove away from the scene, continuing westbound on Alewive, before stopping the Pilot by a business. The Pilot suffered heavy structural damage with deployments of front and side airbags, a pair of flat tires, a shattered windshield, and significant intrusion and roof collapse above the front passenger cabin, as visible in the image. Megan suffered a broken nose and various lacerations, while her children also suffered lacerations. Police stated the DHS alerted them to a potential issue, and they drew Megan’s blood at the hospital, leading to the OUI charge. Megan has pled not guilty and now awaits trial.


Why:

This is a rather straightforward case of drunk driving that could easily have turned fatal under only slightly different circumstances, such as if she had driven the Pilot into oncoming traffic or into trees or buildings. However, with that said, what interests me most here is the crashworthiness of the vehicle that kept her and her children safe throughout the collision.

The 2011 Pilot has “good” front moderate overlap and side impact scores, but a “poor” small frontal overlap and “marginal” roof strength score. The deployment of the side airbags most likely saved the children and mother from experiencing severe injury or death during the rollover, while the front airbag helped the mother when she drove into the rock wall. The roof score, however, was also highly relevant, as its ability to retain much of its integrity prevented the family from being crushed during the rollover. Notice, however, the degree of roof intrusion over the front passenger cabin; it is likely that an individual sitting in that seat may have suffered serious injury or death. This is why crashworthiness is so important.

Of course, the biggest lesson from this story is not to drive drunk. However, additional factors also played a role in the family’s survival here. It is also likely that the children were strapped into booster seats such as those found in the Diono Rainier, that accommodates children up to 120 pounds, as booster seats significantly reduce the risk of injury or death to children in collisions by ensuring the seat belt is placed securely around the child’s lap and shoulder. Remember not to rush putting children into seat belts; booster seats exist for a reason, and are the better choice for most children until they’re 10-12 years old.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Rachel Delisle, 30, and 3 in Jacksonville, NC, Killed in Crash

unsplash-lu-flowersWho:

Rachel Elizabeth Delisle, 30, was killed at around 5PM on Saturday, 2/15/14, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, at the Highways 258 and 53 intersections, where Burgaw and Richlands Highway meet, when her 2001-2007 Toyota Sequoia was t-boned by a 2006-era Hyundai Sonata driven by Saquan Nelson, 24, with Darius Williams, 16, and Jonathan Cooper, 25, as vehicle passengers. All four adults were killed. The only survivor was Gabriel Delisle, the 6-month-old son of Rachel. Rachel was married to Lt. Jason Deslile, and they had three children together, all boys.

How:

Per police reports, the Sonata was traveling at close to 100 mph in a zone with a 45 mph speed limit. Per witnesses, the vehicle had been weaving through traffic before it entered NC 53 in the wrong lanes. The driver ran a red light and impacted the passenger side of the Sequoia. Both vehicles flew to the other end of the intersection, and the Sonata was split in half by a pole. There was only one survivor: the 6-month-old securely strapped into his car seat, which police credited with saving his life. He received a few bruises and cuts but was otherwise fine.

Why:

This is another sad case resulting from speeding, which is implicated in 1 out of every 3 auto deaths in the US. It is also a fatality that resulted from a failure to yield at a red light. It is unclear why Nelson was speeding.

The 2001-era Sequoia weighs ~5100 lbs and does not have any kind of side score from the NHTSA or IIHS. It comes with head and torso side airbags in the front seats. The 2006 Sonata weighs ~3535 lbs and comes with a “good” frontal score.

Given the likely speeds of the collision (100 mph, or 55 mph above the 45 mph PSL), the collision likely imparted at least 1.6MJ of energy into the Sequoia / Sonata. The standard side impact test simulates 143KJ of energy (a 3300-lb sled impacting a vehicle at 31 mph). In other words, the Sequoia faced 1119% of the force it would have experienced in the types of crashes cars are side rated for. Besides that, it didn’t have a side rating, which means it was not designed to adequately protect occupants from the standard simulation. It is sadly understandable that the mother succumbed to these forces. Similarly, the men in the Sonata experienced 625% of the force their vehicle was designed to safely sustain (256KJ), which made their deaths inevitable. In the end, this was a completely needless collision that claimed four lives needlessly.

The part of this story that speaks to me most, however, is the survival of her son. Despite the unimaginably high forces imparted upon the vehicle and the severe degree of structural intrusion visible in the photos above, the child lived. Why?

I’ve written before extensively about the importance of choosing the right car seat and properly restraining children, and this is a textbook example of the advantage properly-restrained children have, even in severe collisions. Gabriel was restrained in a rear-facing car seat, which was both the law for children his age and best practices for children up to at least 4. Properly restrained children can survive crashes that would otherwise be unsurvivable.

This is another sad example of how the rear-facing and properly installed car seat can turn into the orphan seat in a severe collision. Fortunately, Gabriel will still have a father and two siblings to grow up with. It’s a tragedy, however, that his siblings are left without a mother, and his father without his best friend.

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If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.

Britax B-Safe 35 Review: Newborn and 3-Across Friendly, Easy to Install

Britax has been releasing capable and highly developed car seats and strollers over a number of years, and I’ve been happy to either use or review many of them, such as the Advocate ClickTight, Marathon ClickTight, Boulevard Clicktight, Frontier ClickTight, Pinnacle ClickTight, Pioneer, Parkway SGL, and B-Safe. None of these seats have disappointed me, and I’ve also been a happy patron of their B-Agile Double Stroller.

When Britax let me know that the B-Safe 35 was on the way and would soon be available on Amazon, I was eager to put it through its paces, especially having just taken a look at the B-Safe 35 Elite, its high end twin. In short, I think it’s a great seat, even if it doesn’t have all of the features of the Elite. For details, read on!

2018 update: There have been no significant changes to the B-Safe 35 in the last couple of years with respect to its height and weight limits, although fabric options have changed slightly.

Britax B-Safe 35 – What’s the big deal?

As I noted in the Britax B-Safe 35 Elite review, Britax released refreshes to their long-running B-Safe infant seat, splitting it into two tracks: the regular Britax B-Safe 35, which has an upgraded 35 pound rear-facing weight limit and a number of additional safety features thrown in, and the Elite, which has even more safety features built in on top of the 35 pound weight limit. The safety features are designed to offer greater side impact protection while making the seat easier to install and use. We’ll take a closer look at them in a moment.

In terms of categorization, the Britax B-Safe 35 is an infant seat, which means it can only be used in a rear-facing configuration, and that you’ll need another seat when you’re ready to forward-face, such as a convertible or combination seat. However, the B-Safe 35 can be used directly from the hospital to carry your baby home as soon as s/he’s born, and will be a lot lighter and easier to use than even the lightest convertible seats. Overall, it’s a fitting alternative to the perennially popular Chicco KeyFit 30 infant seat.

Britax B-Safe 35 Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 4 to 35 pounds. Children should be 32″ tall or less, and the usual 1″ height limit relative to the top of the seat shell applies, in that children’s heads can’t be within 1″ of the top of the seat. The seated shoulder height of the child can range between 6.5″ and 11″. Children must be at least 1 to forward-face, but this is far too early, in my opinion. Personally, I recommend children should remain rear-facing at least until 4, which is also known as extended rear-facing.  The Swedes don’t forward-face until then, which is a big part of why they lose almost no young children each year to motor vehicle collisions.

Buy the Britax B-Safe 35 on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon.

Dimensions of the Britax B-Safe 35

The B-Safe 35 is 17.75″ wide, 25″ high, and 26.5″ tall. The seat itself weighs 10 pounds while the base weighs an additional 9 pounds when used. The shoulder width is 10″ and the seat back compartment height is 20.” The seat area itself is 13″ long and 8.75″ wide. There are 4 harness slot heights at 5″, 7″, 9″, and 11″, while there are two buckle straps at 4″ and 6″ in depth. The width of 17.75″ means that you’re going to have an easy time installing it in just about any SUV, truck, or car with 2 other car seats. For information about which kinds of seats are likely to work with the B-Safe, check out the 3 across car seat guide here.

Using the Britax B-Safe 35

Installation

Out of the box, I like the look of the Britax B-Safe 35. It’s made of plastic and steel, with a steel-reinforced substructure and plastic throughout most of the shell, along with the fabrics for the canopy. You can achieve a good installation through either LATCH anchors or through the seat belt. Something I like about the B-Safe 35 is the SafeCenter LATCH Installation system, which is Britax’s name for some center-pull straps in the base that you simply tighten in order to tighten the LATCH anchors. It works smoothly and takes the hassle out of an infant seat installation, so I’m a fan of it.

However, I’m always a fan of a basic seat belt installation, particularly when dealing with 3 across installations or with older vehicles that might not have LATCH anchors. Thanks to the seat belt lock offs, you can get a good tight installation without much effort. That said, when it comes to infant seats I prefer LATCH setups if you can get away with them because you simply LATCH the base and then connect and disconnect the infant seat as needed.

Base, Harness, and Fit

The B-Safe 35 base is solid and comes with a number of safety indicators. It is also compatible with the B-Safe 35 Elite. You can buy as many extra bases as you have additional vehicles in order to be able to seamlessly transfer your B-Safe 35 from one vehicle to the next without having to deal with a baseless seat belt installation, which is awkward and likely to wake a baby. You get a spring-based recline foot and two ball level indicators, one on each side, to ensure you find the proper level of recline for your infant. The base installation process was smooth and the car seat attaches and detaches smoothly from the base.

The B-Safe 35 harness is not as complex as that in the B-Safe 35 Elite. There are 4 harness positions rather than 6, and they are located at 5″, 7″, 9″, and 11″ at the highest harness height. It also does not have a no-rethread harness, even though it does have a nice easy-release harness button to make loosening the harness straps an easier affair. I’m a big fan of no-rethread harnesses since they make the process of harness adjustment so much less of a hassle than it otherwise can be, but Britax would naturally want you to upgrade to the B-Safe 35 Elite to get that feature. Fair enough. The harness isn’t that bad to rethread anyway. Always remember, of course, that you’ll need the harness straps to be below or at your child’s shoulders while rear-facing, which is the only position you can have for an infant seat.

In terms of fit, the B-Safe 35 is designed to fit newborns and preemies since it’s rated to a lower weight limit of 4 pounds, and I was happy to find that it fit my premature 5 pound doll as well a full term 8 pound doll. Since we’re never quite sure how big or small our infants are going to be until they’re born, it’s a very good thing to know that a car seat will fit most infant sizes before you actually need to try it.

B-Safe 35 Safety Features

Safety-wise, I like that Britax focuses on side-impact protection in the B-Safe 35, even if they don’t to the same extent as they do with the B-Safe 35 Elite. The base in both seats is the same Impact Absorbing Base, which is designed to compress so some amount of crash energy is absorbed before reaching your child. Britax also includes a steel frame that’s designed to stabilize impacts and a strong protective shell that’s also meant to protect your child from life-threatening forces in a collision.

Buy the Britax B-Safe 35 on Sale with Free Shpping at Amazon.

Why Buy the Britax B-Safe 35?

The Britax B-Safe 35 is worth buying for several reasons. The first, for me, is that it offers a significant boot in rear-facing ability than its predecessor simply due to the higher weight limit. As with the B-Safe 35 Elite, I’d have been even happier if Britax had increased the height limits along with the weight limits, but at least they’re aware of the benefits of increasing some of the limits, and perhaps a height limit boost is not far away.

The important thing to keep in mind when you’re dealing with car seats for children under 4 or 5 is that you want to rear-face as long as you possibly can. This simply means that you shouldn’t stop with the B-Safe 35 when your child outgrows it. Thirty five pounds is nice, but it’s not going to get your child up to age 4, and I personally believe we should be aiming that far when it comes to rear-facing. If you’re aiming that far, then you’ll want to look toward seats like the Advocate ClickTight, Marathon ClickTight, or Boulevard Clicktight. if you’re interested in keeping your car seat selections within the Britax line. On the other hand, if you’re willing to try other companies, there are car seats out there that will let you rear-face up to even 50 pounds, which are, in my opinion, the safest seats currently available for young children.

Besides the ability to rear-face longer, I also like the side impact technology built into the B-Safe 35, even if it isn’t quite as much as that built into the Elite. I’m also a fan of the fabrics and the ergonomics of the seat and the fact that it has stroller compatibility with a range of Britax strollers, such as the B-Agile Double. I’m also a fan of its local manufacture in the United States and the fact that you’re good to use it on an airplane due to its FAA aircraft approval.

I’m a fan of the Britax B-Safe 35, and you can buy it here in Black, Red, and Sandstone.

If you find my information on best practices in car and car seat safety helpful, you can do your shopping through this Amazon link. Canadians can shop here for Canadian purchases. Have a question or want to discuss best practices? Join us in the forums!