All posts by Mike

Two Men Killed in Dallas, OR in Pickup vs. SUV Crash

Who:

Cayden Thomas Fitch, 18, and Michael Joseph Moylett, 69 were killed around 7:04 PM on 4/5/14 close to Dallas, OR on Highway 22. Fitch was in a 1995 Ford Ranger while Moylett was in a 2011 Toyota RAV4. Bryan, 43, Fitch’s father, an OSP trooper, was off duty and seriously injured in the passenger seat, while Moylett’s passenger, his wife, Estella, 61, was also seriously injured.

How:
Per police reports, Fitch was eastbound on the highway and attempting to pass a car. It was a two lane highway. He did not complete the maneuver and crashed head-on with a westbound RAV4. All occupants wore seat belts and airbags deployed. The Ranger stopped after the crash in the middle of the highway, while the RAV4 came to rest on the highway’s north side. Fitch and Moylett died at the scene.

Why:
It is unclear why Fitch crashed into Moylett, but given the fact that he was a younger driver and it was close to nighttime, it is likely that his lack of experience combined with the low visibility may have played a role. It is unclear at this time if Fitch or Moylett were speeding. Whatever the reason, the deaths of the drivers while the front passengers survived with serious injuries suggest the crash was a moderate or small frontal offset crash.

The 1995 Ranger weighs 3153 lbs and comes with a “good” IIHS frontal score. It was impacted by a 2011 RAV4 that weighs approximately 3500 lbs. As a result, the Ranger occupants faced 11% more force than they’d have faced colliding with another Ranger, placing them at a slight disadvantage. The RAV4 occupants experienced 10% less force.

Given the likely speeds of the collision (at least 65 mph, the state speed limit), the collision likely imparted at least 670KJ of energy into the Ranger. The Ranger frontal impact test simulates 229KJ of energy (a Ranger impacting another at 40 mph). In other words, the Ranger occupants faced 293% of the force they’d have experienced in the type of crash their truck was rated for. Given the speed of the collision, their odds of survival were low, but possible, reflected in the survival of the passenger, Fitch’s father.

The RAV4 frontal test simulated 254KJ of energy (a RAV4 impacting another at 40 mph), indicating that its occupants would have faced 238% of the forces his SUV was rated to safely withstand, given that the Ranger imparted 604KJ of energy into the RAV4. While these were still tremendous forces, their odds of survival should still have been significantly better, and this was reflected in the passenger’s survival.

However, while the RAV4 does have a “good” overall score, its subscore for head/neck protection is only “acceptable”, as the test dummy head was observed to impact the steering wheel through the airbag in the 40 mph tested crash. It is likely that such an impact at the much higher speeds of the crash is what led to the death of Moylett. Similarly, Moylett was significantly older than Fitch, and advancing age is a known risk in fatal collisions. All of these factors combined to make this a collision where fatalities were observed in the higher weight vehicle, an unusual occurrence in most of the cases I study.

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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.

UPPAbaby MESA Review: Why Buy the UPPAbaby MESA?

When it comes to car safety, you can focus on driving safely and you can focus on choosing a safe car. However, if you have children, you also need to focus on choosing a safe car seat. This is one of a series of reviews I’ll write on what I consider to be the best car seats currently available in the United States. This review focuses on the UPPAbaby MESA. My wife reviewed two strollers compatible with the MESA, the Cruz and Vista, and it was only natural that I’d review the infant seat that fit them like a glove.

2018 update: There haven’t been any significant changes (besides fabric stylings) to the UPPAbaby MESA since 2015; it remains a solid infant seat and an excellent choice for a baby’s first car seat.

UPPAbaby MESA – What’s the big deal?

The UPPAbaby MESA isn’t the kind of seat I’d typically review, given my preference for convertibles and combination seats, but functionality is what’s important, and in terms of functionality, this is one of the most impressive seats on the market. It’s an infant car seat, which means it can be used in one configuration: as a rear-facing infant seat. It does not forward face; for that, you’ll need a convertible. It’s the first infant seat from the popular stroller brand UPPAbaby, and aims to improve child safety by increasing the odds parents have of correctly installing and using car seats from day one. Is it worth it? Read on to find out!

UPPAbaby Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 4-35 pounds. Your child’s head should not reach past 1″ below the top of the main shell. There is also a 32″ height limit for the child, which is 2″ more than the 30″ limit in the Chicco KeyFit 30. The seated height is around 17.5″ inside the seat.

Of course, as a parent interested in best practices, you’re not going to stop at 35 lbs, since research into car safety indicates children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible (the average is 4 years in Sweden, which posts the lowest child fatality rate on Earth), and after rear-facing, the child should remain forward-facing as long as possible.

Buy the UPPAbaby MESA on Sale at Amazon here.

Dimensions of the UPPAbaby MESA

The seat is 17″ wide at its widest point and 14″ at the base, which is much narrower than the Chicco KeyFit 30. The seat weighs 11.1 pounds, which makes it one of the lightest seats I’ve reviewed so far, although it’s heavier than the Chicco KeyFit 30. Of course, being an infant seat, it should be a rather light seat to begin with. It also has a 7-year expiration date.

Using the UPPAbaby MESA

UPPAbaby claims the MESA only takes 10 seconds to install via LATCH, and according to my stopwatch, that’s pretty accurate. I was surprised myself until I took a look at the seat, and discovered that this was just one of the many things to love about the MESA. What makes the MESA so awesome? It’s a seat that was clearly thought out well ahead of time, and that led to a good design and solid construction.

The MESA comes with a detachable base that has a low profile and, quite frankly, looks pretty slick. I like how it has spaces for the LATCH connectors to hide when not in use and how they’re activated by a button on the base. Good thinking, UPPAbaby. The base also includes recline angle indicators and has 4 positions for adjusting the recline. There is a red-green window indicator on the base that lets you know when you’ve got a good installation. You can purchase extra bases separately for installation in additional vehicles.

The seat can be detached from its base and attached to UPPAbaby strollers such as the CRUZ or VISTA, which makes it easy to transport your children while on the go. There is a handle button that allows disconnection of the seat from a stroller with a single hand, which is an unexpected but highly appreciated luxury.

Washing Instructions, LATCH, and Seat Belt Use

The MESA covers are machine washable (use the cold water cycle on delicate with a mild detergent, and air dry them). The manual is available in English and Spanish and makes sense in both languages. You can achieve a good install with either the seat belt or with lower LATCH anchors. Don’t use both, of course. The seat may be installed with or without the base. I like the base because it makes it a snap (literally) to install and remove the seat, which is crucial for getting a newborn or young infant out of a vehicle or into one without waking him or her. It’s an incredibly good fit, too, which I like.

Something else I like about the MESA is that it is very preemie friendly. There are a lot of seats that require a lot of hoops such as blanket rolling to make work with premature infants, and any mother who has purchased, bought, and returned several car seats to and from the NICU in effort to find a seat that makes a good fit knows how thankless of a task that is. However, the MESA fits preemies easily (as long as they weigh at least 4 pounds), which is a blessing. It is recommended to use the infant insert if using the seat with babies between 4 and 8 pounds.

Buy the UPPAbaby MESA on Sale at Amazon here.

Why Buy the UPPAbaby MESA?

This is the meat and potatoes of this car seat. The UPPAbaby MESA is not designed to help you rear-face a child until the cows come home. What it does well is provide parents with a convenient and nearly fool-proof method of getting their child safely from the hospital and around for the first few months of life. After that, I’d recommend replacing it with a convertible seat with the highest RF limits you can find. In other words, look for these seats. Remember, every pound is precious, as the longer you rear-face, the safer your child is. In the US, parents tend to turn their children around into the line of fire at 1. In Sweden, this typically isn’t done until 4. Children in Sweden are far less likely to die in car crashes than children in the US. It makes that much of a difference.

If extended rear facing is what’s most important, then you might wonder why I’d suggest a seat that doesn’t come anywhere close to the best ERF limits. That’s because infant seats aren’t designed to RF forever. They’re for convenience! A class A convertible like a Foonf weighs more than 30 pounds; add the 7 pounds of a newborn and there’s no way you’re going to take that seat and child anywhere if it’s all you have as a child seat.

The MESA is compatible with a range of strollers and joggers

In contrast, with a seat like the MESA, you buy it pre-packaged with a stroller or buy it separately and then package with a stroller, such as with the UPPAbaby Vista stroller or the UPPAbaby CRUZ stroller. You can even buy Baby Jogger MESA adapters to attach the MESA to a range of Baby Jogger strollers, including the City Mini GT.

Use the seat and stroller to transport your child when walking, and move the seat with your newborn about without waking up your child. Later, as your child gains in weight, you’ll naturally stop using the infant seat and start using the stroller or a good baby carrier to transport him or her, and when s/he’s in the car, you’ll use a high quality convertible car seat, and then later a combination seat. That’s the easiest way to navigate the practicalities of weight, children, car seats, and transportation. Start with the infant seat and stroller, or infant seat and carrier, and transition to the stroller or carrier and convertible seat.

The MESA has a larger weight limit and a taller shell that enable you to rear-face longer in an infant seat than you would in a seat like the Chicco Keyfit 30. The 4-lb minimum is great for preemies, it is incredibly easy to install, comes with a machine washable cover, a 7-year expiration date, and even a 2-year warranty as long as you have proof of purchase. All of these factors combine to make this, in my opinion, the single best infant seat currently available on the market.

I recommend the UPPAbaby MESA wholeheartedly. You can buy the UPPAbaby MESA in a range of colors here. The UPPAbaby MESA Vista stroller is here and the UPPAbaby MESA CRUZ stroller is here. Here is where you can pick up an extra base. Finally, here’s an example of a great baby carrier, the Pognae.

Unfortunately, the MESA is not yet available in Canada, but the closest Canadian equivalent I’d recommend is the KeyFit 30, available here.

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!

Combi Coccoro Review: Why Buy the Combi Coccoro?

Choosing the right car seat can be difficult enough when you have a healthy, full-term infant in a large vehicle for 3 across, but what do you do when you have a smaller infant, or multiples, like twins or triplets? What happens if you have a much smaller car than normal? The Combi Coccoro is designed to answer these kinds of questions elegantly and safely.

Combi Coccoro – What’s the big deal?

The Combi Coccoro looks like a doll’s car seat, but functionality is what’s important, and in terms of functionality, this is one of the best car seats for fitting premature infants and fitting children in small cars. It’s a convertible car seat, which means it can be used in multiple configurations, including as a rear-facing infant seat and as a forward-facing seat. It is a niche seat designed to enable parents to rear-face their children in very small vehicles. Is it worth it? Read on to find out!

Combi Coccoro Limits for Weight and Height

Rear-facing: 3-33 pounds. Your child’s head should not reach past 1″ below the top of the headrest. There is a 36″ height limit for the child besides the 1″ rule, but the 1″ height limit is the more important one. The shell height is around 21.5″ tall, which means there’s not a lot of room for growth before children will outgrow it by height.

Forward-facing: 20-40 pounds, and under 40″ in height. Your child should be at least 1, and it’s recommended that s/he is at least 2. Of course, research into car safety indicates children should remain rear-facing for as long as possible (the average is 4 years in Sweden, which posts the lowest child fatality rate on Earth), and after rear-facing, the child should remain forward-facing as long as possible.

Buy the Combi Coccoro on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Dimensions of the Combi Coccoro

The seat is 15″ wide from top to bottom, which makes it nice when installing with other seats, since there aren’t any surprising protrusions. The bottom harness slots are 8″ high and the top harness slots are 15″ high. Per Combi, it weighs 14.3 pounds.

Using the Combi Coccoro

The Combi Coccoro is designed from the ground up to work well with small babies, and I love that about it. It includes an infant padding insert that is required until a baby reaches 25 pounds. However, the insert may be used until your child’s shoulders are above the highest harness slots when your child is forward-facing, or until the harness slots are simply too short to fit your child. With the insert, small babies fit quite well; I’ve found they even fit better in the Coccoro than in a number of infant seats.

If I had to bet, I’d wager that the typical 50%ile child will be able to reach at least 30 pounds while rear-facing and would probably reach all 40 pounds while forward-facing.

The harness straps feel good on the skin and don’t twist easily, while there is good padding beneath the buckle, and you can use the harness pads that come with the seat right from the start. The seat belt installation is rather straight forward, but you’ll need to  pull back the cover to get the belt threaded. Similarly, the LATCH install doesn’t take much time. The forward-facing install is also a typical one. Keep in mind you’re only supposed to use the tether when forward-facing.

There are a variety of vehicles that can’t be used well with many car seats because they’re simply too small. However, I haven’t found a car the Cocorro couldn’t fit so far, including in a number of minicars like the Honda Fit and Kia Rio. Three across is laughably easy.

Buy the Combi Coccoro on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Combi Coccoro?

This is the meat and potatoes of this car seat. The  Combi Coccoro is not the kind of seat you buy if you’re looking to extended rear-face. In fact, many seats do a much better job. Every pound is precious, as the longer you rear-face, the safer your child is. In the US, parents tend to turn their children around into the line of fire at 1. In Sweden, this typically isn’t done until 4. Children in Sweden are far less likely to die in car crashes than children in the US. It makes that much of a difference.

With that in mind, why would anyone consider the Cocorro? Let’s be honest: the Combi Coccoro is not going to win any awards for uber-long RF weight among its fellow convertibles. However, it’s designed to fill a niche, and in that respect, it does so well. It’s a great seat for parents interested in rear-facing who have premature infants who simply won’t fit in a number of regular-sized convertibles or infant seats when leaving the hospital. Newborns can hop right into this without using an infant seat, and it will still allow rear-facing longer than most infant seats.

The second group of parents who should consider the Combi Coccoro are those who need to fit car seats into small, small vehicles. The same applies for parents trying to rear-face in vehicles that don’t have leg room or that have a tall driver or passenger in the front seats. It’s incredibly skinny, so you will be able to fit three across, whether with this or with other car seats, in most vehicles that are mini-sized or larger, depending on the other seats, of course.

Something else that’s neat about the Coccoro is that it’s one of only a handful of seats in the United States that can currently be tethered while rear-facing as well as while forward-facing. It isn’t required to rear-face tether, but rear-facing tethering does have its advantages, which I’ll discuss in a forthcoming article.

The biggest strike against the Combi Coccoro is the fact that there are seats that allow you to RF significantly longer by weight and height. I also wish it had more than a 7-year product life. However, if you have a preemie or need to fit a car seat (or several) in a very small car, the Combi Coccoro will give you both while still helping you rear-face to age 2.

I recommend the Combi Coccoro wholeheartedly if it meets your needs. You can buy the Combi Coccoro in a range of colors here. Canadians can buy it here.

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!

Chelsey Northrup, 21, in Freedom Township, MI, Killed in Car vs. Pickup Crash

Who:
Chelsea Northrup, 21, of Saline, was killed at around 9:56 PM Sunday night on 5/4/14 in Freedom Township, MI, on Parker Rd south of Scio Church Rd. She drove a southbound gray 2007 Ford Fusion, and was hit by Garrett Roe, 36, who was northbound and crossed the center line in his silver 2013 Ford F-150. He was drunk and using his cell phone, and had non-life threatening injuries. Chelsey died at the scene.

How:
Per police reports, Roe was northbound and drunk when his cell phone rang. He claimed to have reached for his phone, removed his eyes from the road, crossed the center line, and struck the other vehicle. Police additionally suspected alcohol was related to the crash.

Why:
This is another sad case of drunk driving mixed with distracted driving from cell phone use. One third of fatal crashes in the US continue to be directly attributable to alcohol use, and this claimed Chelsey’s life that night.

Investigating the physics of the crash, it is sadly not surprising that Northrup died while the F-150 occupant lived, as her vehicle was massively outweighed by the Ford. The 2007 Fusion weighs 3384 lbs and comes with a “good” IIHS frontal score. It was impacted by a 2013 F-150, that weighs 5199 lbs, or 154% of the Fusion’s weight.

As a result, the Fusion’s driver automatically faced 54% more force in the collision than she would have if she’d collided with another Fusion, placing her at a severe disadvantage in the collision that would not have existed had we placed greater restrictions on manufacturers’ abilities to create and citizens’ abilities to drive needlessly heavy vehicles on our roads.

Given the likely speeds of the collision (~55 mph), the collision likely imparted at least 713KJ of energy into the Fusion. The Fusion frontal impact test simulates 245KJ of energy (a Fusion impacting another at 40 mph). In other words, the Fusion driver faced 291% of the force she’d have experienced in the type of crash her car was rated for. Given the speed of the collision, particularly combined with the “acceptable” head/neck subscore of the Fusion, her odds of survival were, sadly, quite small.

The F-150’s frontal test simulates 377KJ of energy (a Ford impacting another at 40 mph), indicating that its occupants would have faced 123% of the forces the vehicle was rated to safely withstand, given that the Fusion imparted 464KJ of energy into the F-150. This was clearly a survivable collision for the Ford’s occupants, which was reflected in the driver’s survival and lack of severe injuries.

This was a completely preventable tragedy. Chelsea was doing nothing wrong and simply was unfortunate enough to be in the path of someone who did not take the grand responsibility of driving seriously, and now an innocent life has been taken senselessly.

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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.

Which Car Seat Side or Position is Safest, Outboard or Center? A Look at the Research

The center is safest, but it's more important to rear-face than to use the center position if you have to choose between the two.
The center is safest, but it’s more important to rear-face than to use the center position if you have to choose between the two.

One of the questions I get time and time again involves which seat position is safest for a car seat for young children. It’s common knowledge by now that the back seat is safer than the front seat and that rear-facing is much, much safer than forward-facing, but what about whether to place a seat behind the driver, in the center, or behind the passenger seat? Which is safest? The left, middle, or right? Which of the three Foonfs above should your child sit in, if you get the choice?

Which car seat position is safest–behind the driver, in the center, or behind the passenger?

Instead of answering this question individually, I decided to write it up for everyone. Here is a technical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics that addresses this, published in Pediatrics Vol. 127 No. 4 on April 1, 2011, between pages 1050 and 1066. You can read the whole report; it has lots of interesting information. However, for the purposes of answering this question, this is the relevant part:

Two recent studies specifically evaluated the potential incremental benefits of the center rear seating position compared with the rear outboard positions. Lund79 used data from the National Automotive Sampling System–General Estimates System system from 1992 to 2000 to evaluate the effect of seating position on the risk of injury for children in child restraints. Lund reported that children in the center rear seat had a similar risk of injury to children in the outboard rear seats. In contrast, Kallan et al74 used data from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety project, a large, child-focused crash-surveillance system, from 1998 to 2006 and found that children restrained in forward-facing CSSs and seated in the center rear had an injury risk 43% lower than similarly restrained children in either of the rear outboard positions (adjusted OR: 0.57 [95% CI: 0.38–0.86]). These contrasting findings are likely attributable to how injuries were defined in the 2 studies. Lund defined injury as any police-reported injury, which included those of a relatively minor nature. The threshold for injury was higher in the Kallan et al analysis, which included only injuries involving internal organs and fractures of the extremities.

In other words, one study (Lund’s) did not find a difference in outcomes based on sitting in the center rear vs. outboard positions, while a second study (Kallan et al’s) found a 43% reduced risk of injury when children sat in the center rear compared to the outboard (by the door) positions. The Kallan study was based on forward-facing children, so it’s not clear if the results would be as significant with rear-facing children. However, in the absence of that information, it does seem like the center position is the preferred one. This is underscored by the fact that Kallan’s study only looked at serious injuries, such as those where internal organs were damaged or extremities were fractured, while Lund’s study looked at all kinds of injuries, including minor ones.

To put it another way, if the data from both studies is valid, it suggests that while the overall rates of injury aren’t statistically different based on where car seats are installed in the rear of a vehicle, there is a significant reduction in the rate of serious injuries when children are installed in the center seat, at least when these children are forward-facing.

Does this mean I should never place a child by a door?

Not necessarily. Nor does it mean you should worry if you have to have an outboard installation, especially if you’re installing 3 across seats. What’s most important is to rear-face as long as possible (ideally until 4, 5 or longer), followed by forward-facing for as long as necessary (ideally until at least 5), and then transitioning to a booster (ideally until between 10 and 12). Those are the big areas to cover.

After all of that is covered, if you only have one child to transport, I would put him or her in the middle, and in a good car seat. If you have two or more to transport, I would put the least protected child (e.g., the youngest forward-facing child) in the middle. Keeping basic car safety tenets in mind, I’d also drive as little as possible; it’s very hard to die in a vehicular collision if you aren’t logging thousands of miles on the road each year.

Finally, remember that if you are using a center position, most vehicles and car seats do not allow you to use outboard LATCH attachments from the outboard seats. This means that in most center installations, you will need to use the seat belt. Remember that seat belts are every bit as safe as LATCH. You can go to a free car seat safety check to make sure your seat is properly installed. Your hospital or pediatrician should be able to tell you when and where the next one in your area will take place.

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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.