All posts by Mike

Britax Grow With You ClickTight Review: The Best US/Canada Combination Seat

The Britax Grow With You (Formerly Frontier) ClickTight is one of the two best combination seats you can buy today in the United States. This is particularly important to consider when you think about how many children are boostered too early and how many more are transferred to the adult seat belt when they should still be strapped into booster seats. This review will explore the ins and outs of the Britax Frontier and explain why it’s likely to be the last booster seat you ever need before your child transitions into the adult seat belt.

2020 update: Britax updated the Frontier 90 and renamed it the Frontier G.1.1, and then renamed it the Frontier ClickTight, and most recently renamed it the Grow With You ClickTight. The height and weight limits (as well as the dimensions and weight) of the seat remain the same. It’s still one of the two best combination seats on the market, as well as one of the best booster seats on the market.

Britax Grow With You ClickTight- What’s the big deal?

The Britax Grow With You ClickTight continues a tradition of versatile, high weight and height car seats that makes this one of the most impressive combination seats on the market. It’s a combination car seat, which means it can be used in two configurations: as a forward-facing seat and as a booster. Released by Britax alongside its high weight sibling the Pinnacle 90, the Frontier 90 is a combination car seat that should be on every parent’s shopping list.

Buy the Britax Grow With You ClickTight on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Britax Grow With You Limits for Weight and Height

Forward-facing: 25-90 pounds, and between 30 and 58″ in height.  The seated shoulder height of the child can range between 12.5 and 20.5.” Your child should be at least 2-years-old. 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. Also note that using a tether is required when using the seat in harnessed mode if the child weighs more than 65 pounds, although Britax recommends it in every installation.

Booster mode: 40-120 pounds, and between 45 and 62″ in height. The seated shoulder height of the child can range between 15 and 23.” Remember that children should remain in booster seats until their seat belts fit them over the shoulder, across the chest, and flat on the upper thighs, or until they pass the 5 step test, which I describe here.

Dimensions of the Britax Grow With You ClickTight

The seat is 19″ wide at its widest point, which is at the shoulders. The seat weighs 25 pounds. Inside, it is around 15.5″ wide at the widest upper portion at the shoulders and 12″ wide in the seat area.

Using the Britax Grow With You ClickTight

The seat arrives in a box that’s designed very well; you don’t have to struggle to get the seat out of the box, which is nice when you consider that it has a decent amount of weight behind it. The seat essentially just slides out, which is where the fun begins.

The installation of the seat is a dream. In fact, it’s my second favorite thing about the Frontier after its harness height range. What I’m talking about is the ClickTight seat belt installation system. It’s designed to allow you to make a safe installation through what is essentially an automatic belt tensioner. I love this! All you need to do is lift the cover so you see the ClickTight panel, route the belt through the green path as needed, and then close the cover. It only takes a few minutes in most vehicles, and from then on, all you need to do is attach your top tether strap to the appropriate tether anchor.

Don’t worry about LATCH weight limits! Don’t worry about complex paths for routing the belt! Don’t worry about locking clips! It’s that easy in the majority of vehicles. This is a reason that, by itself, would make the Frontier worth considering. The Frontier’s ClickTight connection sytem just made car seat installation a lot safer.

Buy the Britax Grow With You on Sale with Free Shipping at Amazon here.

Why Buy the Britax Grow With You?

This is the meat and potatoes of this car seat. The Frontier leads the car seat industry in the United States with its high top harness height setting of 20.5.” Most children outgrow their combination seats by height long before they do by weight simply because most combination seats only offer top harness heights, or upper shoulder heights for children, of 18″ or 19.” Remember that when forward-facing, with very few exceptions, a child can no longer use a seat once his or her shoulders are level with the top harness. Because of the mega-height of the Frontier, outgrowing it by height is a lot harder. Of course children who are in the tallest percentiles by height will still likely outgrow it by height before doing so by weight, but right now, this is as good as it gets. This alone is reason enough to buy the Frontier. The fact that it comes after the easy installation is just icing on the cake.

Besides that fact, the Frontier also includes a steel frame to keep the seat from flexing forward as much in the event of a crash. It also features EPP foam around the child’s head and body to increase levels of side impact protection and reduce stress and strain on the body during collisions. All of these are good things.

Longer harnessing time, decently narrow

As noted above, you are likely to be able to keep children safely harnessed while forward facing in the Frontier longer than in any other car seat, which is a good thing once you’re done rear-facing. Each transition in child seats signifies a decrease in safety (e.g., rear-facing is safer than forward-facing, which is safer than a booster position, which is safer than simply using a seat belt); the longer you can keep a child forward-facing in a harness, the better. The Frontier now leads the field here.

Finally, the Frontier is also simply an easier seat to install than many combination seats, due to its relatively narrow width of 19 inches. That means it’s actually possible to install 3 across in a number of midsized vehicles. I also like the fact that it has a 9-year usable life (remember, car seats do expire eventually), which is  great, although there are seats with longer lifespans (e.g., the newest Dionos).

The Grow With You is an excellent car seat and, in my opinion, one of the two best  combination car seats currently available in the United States for children above the age of 4.  It’s likely to be the last seat your child needs before s/he is ready for a regular adult seat belt. You can buy the Britax Grow With You ClickTight in a range of colors here. Canadians can buy the Frontier 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. It costs nothing extra to do so, but when you shop through my links, a small portion of your purchase, regardless of what you buy, will go toward the maintenance of The Car Crash Detective.

No Fatalities Case Study: Minivan vs. Pickup Crash

(Thanks to the husband for the images below)
Who:
An unidentified lady driving a 2012 Honda Odyssey EX was impacted around December 2013 by a man driving a 2001-era Ford F-150. There were no fatalities in this collision.

How:
Per the husband of the lady in the Odyssey, the F-150 collided with the Odyssey because the Odyssey had the right of way at an intersection and did not yield, leading to the side impact at the passenger side of the minivan. Per the husband, emergency responders (police and firefighters) were highly impressed at the degree to which structural integrity was maintained in the Odyssey.

Why:
Fortunately, in this case, there were no fatalities. The collision was caused by the failure to yield of the F-150 driver. Fortunately, the relatively low speeds of the collision and the strong structural design of the Odyssey prevented fatalities or serious injuries.
The 2012 Odyssey EX weighs ~4398 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 “good.” The 2001-era F-150 weighs ~4475 lbs and comes with a “poor” front score.

Given the likely speeds of the collision (I’ll estimate ~30 mph, based on front damage to the F-150), the collision likely imparted at least 183KJ of energy into the Odyssey / F-150. 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 127% 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 her vehicle, the Odyssey driver was virtually guaranteed to walk away from this collision, which she 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 F-150 been traveling at only 10 mph faster at 40 mph, it would have imparted nearly twice as much energy into the Odyssey, at 325KJ, despite only traveling 33% faster. I would still have expected the Odyssey driver to have survived such a collision, but in such a collision, she would likely have faced at least minor injuries, and it is quite possible that the F-150 driver would have died, or at least have faced serious injuries, given the poor frontal performance of his vehicle.

—

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.

Clek Foonf vs. Diono Rainier Comparison: What’s the Difference, and Is It Worth It?

The Diono Rainier and Clek Foonf are two of the four seats with the highest rear-facing limits currently available in the United States (the third and fourth being the Diono  Pacifica and Clek Fllo). On the outside, both seats look quite different, even though they have similar goals. Both seats are great, as I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Foonf and the Rainier, but if you’re a new parent, or a parent newly introduced to the wonderful idea of extended rear-facing, you might have a hard time telling the practical difference between the two seats, and why the Foonf is worth around $100 more than the Rainier, depending on which color you’re looking at.Here are my thoughts on the matter, based on my knowledge of both seats and experience with extended rear-facing.

In short, I do think the extra for the Foonf is worth the difference under certain conditions, but not all. The Foonf anti-reboound bar is designed to give extra protection in side impacts, which are among the most dangerous types of impacts relative to their rate of occurrence in vehicles.

The primary reason for their severity is because cars don’t offer as much protection from the side as they do from the front, which is simply because there’s much less room for protective materials such as high strength steel and crumple zones.

Per Clek, the bar keeps the seat from rotating due to a side impact, which is supposed to help keep the child’s head from being impacted (presumably by the intruding vehicle or crumpling passenger compartment). So what does this all mean for the seats in question?

I would recommend the Foonf over the Rainier under the following conditions:

1.) You believe in Clek’s engineering for side impact protection more than you believe in Diono’s. Both claim to offer enhanced side protection, but Clek goes as far as saying that theirs reduces impact forces by keeping the seat more stable and reducing side to side rotation in the event of a side collision. They also include a crash test video that looks convincing, although it would have been even nicer if they’d included force measurements from the crash test dummy. At any rate, what matters here is whose marketing you believe in more.

2.) You’ve got size constraints in the vehicle in which you’ll be installing your car seat, but don’t want to compromise on 50 lbs of rear-facing goodness. There’s no way around it; the Rainier is a large, large seat. The Foonf, in comparison, is significantly smaller, and can fit in cars that just won’t accept the Rainier without punishing everyone sitting in the front seats.

3.) You have another seat already set up for the 5-13 lb range and don’t need a seat that you can use right from the hospital / birthing center (because remember, you can’t put a newborn in the Foonf unless s/he’s heavy enough to be on the nightly news). If you buy the Foonf, it’s guaranteed that it won’t be your only seat, and that it won’t be the first seat your child sits in.

Note: Using the Clek Infant-thingy infant insert reduces the rear-facing weight limit to 5 pounds and overrides the need for your infant to be able to sit upright without assistance. In other words, it completely negates this advantage of the Rainier over the Foonf / Fllo.

4.) You aren’t interested in harnessed front-facing until the cows come home, or until you hit the 90 lb limit of the Rainier, and think 65 lbs is good enough. The research suggests that properly seated and restrained children in boosters are as safe as equivalent forward-facing harnessed children, but that refers to children who are seated properly 100% of the time.

5.) You want a seat that looks as good as it’s engineered, or are interested in one of the many psychedelic patterns available on the Foonf that just aren’t in the Diono range. Aesthetics may not matter to some folks, but they do matter to others, so don’t dismiss this out of hand.

6.) You have the extra $100 or so. This is perhaps the condition that will make the most difference at first glance for many parents, but try not to make your decision entirely on it, as I honestly believe the other conditions are more important (except for perhaps #5).

7.) You have an extraordinarily long-torsoed child. The Foonf might theoretically give you a bit more time by height than the Rainier, because even though it has a slightly shorter height limit (43″ vs 44″), it has a slightly higher shell measurement when rear-facing (26.5″ vs 25″), which means that a child has slightly more room to grow in the torso when in a Foonf than in a Rainier. However, children who are more proportional might not last any longer in one than the other, so this is really a case-by-case difference.

If you can satisfy most of those seven conditions, then the Foonf is for you. Keep in mind that some of those points are non-negotiable; specifically, the lower and higher weight limits are factual differences between the seats, as is the price, while the other elements are more up for debate. If all of this sounds too complicated, then the Rainier will also keep your child safe. Remember that at this level, your driving abilities will make much more of a difference than which of these two seats you choose. You can buy the Foonf here and the Rainier here.

—

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.

Why Rear-Face Your Car Seats Past Age 2?

I’ve written before about the importance of keeping young children rear-facing as long as possible, but am always keen to write more on the topic. It’s why the car seats I recommend and review are those with the highest rear-facing limits currently available in the United States.

Here is an article from the New York Times (from 2011) that discusses the issue, with my thoughts on specific parts of it.

Toddlers are usually switched from rear-facing to forward-facing car seats right after their first birthday — an event many parents may celebrate as a kind of milestone.

This is a phenomenon I’ve seen too often. Parents want to switch as quickly as possible, and even see switching as the car equivalent of a baby taking her first steps or saying his first words. However, switching later is better. In fact, switching at one is much too early.

The advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics, issued Monday, is based primarily on a 2007 University of Virginia study finding that children under 2 are 75 percent less likely to suffer severe or fatal injuries in a crash if they are facing the rear.

In other words, switching children from rear-facing to forward-facing positions significantly increases their risks of suffering severe or fatal injuries in car collisions.

The new policy statement also advises that older children should ride in a belt-positioning booster seat until they are 4 feet 9 inches tall, and 8 to 12 years old. 

This bit of advice is also important, as many parents rush to place their children in the front seats of their vehicles simply because their children ask them to, because they want to share the experience of driving with their children early, or because it’s more convenient and cheaper than worrying about booster seats. However, placing children in seat belts before they’re tall enough to fit them well (4 feet 9 inches, per the AAP), places them at risk.

“We want them to recognize that with each transition they make, from rear-facing to forward-facing, to booster seats, there is a decline in the safety of their child. That’s why we are urging parents to delay these transitions for as long as possible.”

This is something I’ve said for years; each seat transition increases risks. Technically, adults would also be safer rear-facing or forward-facing in harnesses, but that’s a discussion for another day. The key point is that the safest configuration for a child is a rear-facing one. Forward-facing a child makes him or her less safe, and booster seats (unless children sit well) are less safe than forward-facing seats.

The academy’s previous policy, from 2002, said it was safest for infants and toddlers to ride facing the rear, and cited 12 months and 20 pounds as the minimum requirements for turning the car seat forward.

This was the old recommendation, and it wasn’t good enough. To be honest, the new recommendation isn’t good enough either. That’s why car seat safety advocates (including yours truly) advocate extended rear facing. And you know what? It’s actually the standard in some other countries.

Sweden, for instance, where children face the rear until age 4, has the world’s lowest highway fatality rate for children under 6.

This is a fact you’ll see mentioned on this site time and time again because it’s that important. If you rear-face until age 4, you’re giving your child an advantage–a big one. The Swedes have done this for decades, and it’s one of the reasons why they lose so few children to collisions.

“It’s a horrible term,” she said, “but E.M.T.’s call the rear-facing seat ‘the orphan seat’ because in a bad car accident, that child is often the only one who survives.”

My goal is to prevent the rear-facing seat from being the orphan seat for your family; that’s why I write endlessly about car safety. But car seat safety is a part of car safety, and is essential to keep in mind. I’ve written up several cases that involved orphan seats, and the phenomenon is real.

Until recently, most car seats that could be turned to face the rear did not accommodate children weighing more than 20 pounds. Today, however, the limits are closer to 30 to 35 pounds, and a few go to 45 pounds.

It’s worth keeping in mind that this hasn’t been true for a long time outside of the US. Sweden has long had 45 pound and higher car seats, and seats that could rear-face that long only recently became available in the United States. Fortunately, we also now have a few seats capable of reaching 50 pounds, such as the Pacifica, Rainier, and Foonf, pictured above.

The evidence is clear. Rear-face your children to keep them safe. Here is part of a thoughtful comment in the discussion section of that article:

Steve from Arizona wrote:

“This new recommendation is a step in the right direction but it’s still outdated by 30 years. The recommendation by the real experts, the Swedes, is to keep children rear facing until age 4 or longer. That’s what the Swedes do and thanks to this the fatality rate is basically zero each year for young children. Amazing and impressive.

I found this out through pure luck, was working with a Swedish guy who insisted on keeping his children rear facing. Now I’m a rear facing fan since it’s a real life saver. My kids are turned around and will remain rear facing until 4+ years.

Our country is so far behind in car seat safety is embarrassing. We are where the Swedes were 1980. Consider that for a minute. I think we should do better than today and have our children grow up instead of being injured/die in preventable accidents.

The Swedes have rear facing seats which make us look like a third world nation. The seats are compact, rear facing limit of 55 lbs and fit small to large cars. Children sit with bent legs which is safe and comfortable. To grasp some basic info try carseat.se which is an English site with easy to read info.

Oh, poster #101 still hasn’t understood that rear facing is 500% safer, 5 times safer, which has been proven by peer reviewed research and real life experiences in Sweden.

Must surely be a coincidence the Swedes have a zero fatality rate for young kids while it’s the number one killer in US….?”

With all this in mind, why would you want to place your children in seats that don’t allow them to rear-face as much as possible? Why wait for another decade for the AAP to realize that rear-facing until 3 is a good idea? Because even then, they’ll still be 25 pounds behind the Swedes!

Here are the seats that are as good as it gets for rear-facing today in the United States. I wholeheartedly recommend them. Hopefully we’ll soon start seeing seats with even higher height and weight limits.

—

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.

Diono Rainier vs. Pacifica Comparison – What’s the Difference, and Is it Worth it?

The Diono Rainier and Diono Pacifica are two of the four seats with the highest rear-facing limits currently available in the United States (the third and fourth being the Clek Fllo and Clek Foonf). On the outside, both seats look almost identical, with the exception of the deep headwings available on the Rainier.Both seats are great, as I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Pacifica and the Rainier here, but if you’re a new parent, or a parent newly introduced to the wonderful idea of extended rear-facing, you might have a hard time telling the difference between the two seats, and why the Rainier is worth around $40 to $50 more than the Pacifica, depending on which color you’re looking at. Here are my thoughts on the matter, based on my knowledge of both seats and experience with extended rear-facing.

In short, I do think the extra for the Rainier is worth the difference under certain conditions, but not all. The headwings are designed to give extra protection in side impacts, which are among the most dangerous types of impacts relative to their rate of occurrence in vehicles. The primary reason for their severity is because cars don’t offer as much protection from the side as they do from the front, which is simply because there’s much less room for protective materials such as high strength steel and crumple zones.

I can’t prove this, but I’d wager that having the side wings could make a difference in the event of a severe side impact collision. And from reading this blog, you’ll know it doesn’t take very much speed for side impact collisions to become severe. I’m also sure that they’d be helpful in reducing cuts and lacerations from flying glass if you’re in a vehicle that doesn’t include side curtain airbags. So what does this all mean for the seats in question?

I would recommend the Rainier over the Pacifica under the following conditions:

1.) You want the best protection money can buy in a car seat for your children. There is no seat currently available in the US that offers a greater span of protection than the Diono Rainier, with its 50 lb rear-facing, 90 lb front-facing, and 120 lb booster range. Of course, the booster range isn’t going to be very useful for most children once they outgrow the FF range, but that’s the same issue with all Diono seats, so I’m not going to hold that against the Rainier in particular.

2.) You want the extra headwings to offer that slight edge in side impact protection, either for the knowledge that you’ve done your best to protect your child or because you’re driving a vehicle that doesn’t have side curtain airbags, which are essential to keep flying shards of glass out of the passenger compartment during side impact collisions.

3.) You have the extra $40 or $50. I generally don’t feel money should be a deciding factor when looking at ways to keep children from dying in motor vehicle collisions, but everyone’s got a budget, and this is going to be what makes the difference for some folks, and that’s okay.

4.) You want the seat quickly. As of May 2014, very few people have actually picked up Pacificas because they’re back ordered from Diono, who didn’t anticipate selling that many.

If you can satisfy any of those conditions, then the Rainier is for you. If not, the Pacifica will also keep your child safe; at this level, your driving abilities will make much more of a difference. Drive the speed limit and rear-face to the limit in either seat. You can buy the Pacifica here and the Rainier here.

—

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.