One of my favorite resources for information on best practices is the Swedish national Society for Road Safety, or the NTF (Saker Trafik). They’re basically the Swedish version of the NHTSA, and they have a lovely frequently asked question section with all kinds of answers related to the promotion of safe road traffic. I’ve written about them before here (Swedish Car Safety FAQ) and revisited to share their thoughts on a question that comes up from time to time: which kinds of car seats are dangerous?
We know that best practices from a car seat perspective basically means to rear-face until your child is at least 4 or 5 and then to booster until your child is at least 10 to 12. You can do this with two seats readily available in the United States: the Graco Extend2Fit and the Clek Oobr (or if you want to keep within the same company, the Clek Fllo can be your convertible car seat). But what do you want to avoid when it comes to a car seat? We’ll tackle that question today.
Which Kinds of Car Seats are Dangerous, Per Swedish Best Practices?
According to the NTF, the kinds of car seats they’d call “dangerous” are the ones that allow you to forward-face from the age of 1. To quote them specifically, thanks to Google Translate:
There are car seats on the market that are approved for forward-facing placement from about 1 year of age. We could probably call them “dangerous”.
NTF recommends using a car seat that can withstand rear-facing occupants for as long as possible, preferably up to 25 kg. The absolute safest way to travel in a car is in reverse. Children should therefore go back as long as possible, preferably up to 4-5 years of age.
Sounds simple enough. Forward-facing from 1 is dangerous in any seat; what you want to do is to rear-face as long as possible, preferably up to 55 pounds. Now you’re not going to be able to rear-face until 55 pounds in the US; our car seats top out at 50 pounds because the demand just isn’t there yet, per the manufacturers. However, you can easily get to 4 or 5 with nearly any child as long as you use a good 50 pound seat like the aforementioned Graco Extend2Fit or Clek Fllo. If you’re looking for other options, check out the top seats on the recommended car seat list here. The full list as of 2020 features the Clek Fllo, the Clek Foonf, the Diono Rainier 2AX, the Graco Extend2Fit, the Graco Extend2Fit 3-in-1, the Graco 4Ever Extend2Fit, and the Nuna Rava.
Is that really all it takes to make a car seat safe?
Per the Swedes, yes. And no one knows more about car seat safety than they do; they have and continue to have the best track record when it comes to keeping kids alive on the road of any country. Now, there are other parts to road safety, of course. You’ll want to drive as little as possible (the Swedes average only a fraction of Americans’ average annual mileage), and choose safe speeds (that means 43 mph on undivided highways and 62 mph on divided ones) and choose safe roads (the divided ones) whenever you do, and you’ll be far ahead of the game. The full list of articles related to best practices in driving behaviors, vehicle selection, and road infrastructure is here.
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