February 9, 2007
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to issue new child safety seat regulations by the end of the year.
Federal regulators have not decided whether to require side-impact crash tests for child safety seats but NHTSA administrator Nicole Nason said those tests remain under consideration.
The safety of car seats jumped to the public's attention after Consumer Reports published, then retracted, a report that condemned most infant car seats for failing the magazine's side-impact crash tests.
The findings reported only two of 12 seats performed well in the tests. The magazine's publisher, Consumers Union, plans a review the now-discredited infant car seat tests.
Throughout the controversy, experts warned that the safest place for a child is in a properly restrained child seat. Even though just 5 percent of children are unrestrained while riding in a vehicle, they account for 30 percent of all fatalities.
The LATCH system that is used to hold a child seat in a vehicle has been required by Congress since 2002. But a December study by NHTSA showed that 40 percent of parents are still using seat belts to restrain children, in part because they do not understand the LATCH system.
