Usability trials of alternative child restraint attachment systems

Pedder, Jocelyn; Gane, John; Pasco, Douglas; Deibert, Marg; Lumley, Michael

Affiliations

¹RONA Kinetics and Associates Ltd.

²Insurance Corp of British Columbia

³Britax Child-Care Products Pty., Ltd.

Abstract

This paper describes usability trials conducted to determine the ease of use and incidence of misuse of four alternative child restraint/vehicle attachment systems compared to the current system attached via the vehicle seat belt and a top tether. The accuracy of use of each of the alternative systems was significantly higher than the conventional system, and the 76 participants reported they were much easier to use. Systems which utilise the ISOFIX pins were used without difficulty by participants who had no prior experience with this concept. The systems which depend on the users to tighten side straps on the child restraints were improperly installed more frequently than the ISOFIX pin systems.

Links

DOI: 10.4271/973301

SAE: 973301

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Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
1997	Lowne R, Roy P, Paton I. A comparison of the performance of dedicated child restraint attachment systems (ISOFIX). In: Proceedings of the 2nd Child Occupant Protection Symposium. November 12, 1997; Orlando, FL.71-85. SAE 973302.
2000	Weber K. Crash protection for child passengers: a review of best practice. UMTRI Res Rev. July–September 2000;31(3):1-27.
2002	Weber K. Child passenger protection. In: Nahum AM, Melvin JW, eds. Accidental Injury: Biomechanics and Prevention. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag; 2002:523-549.
2001	Paine M, Vertsonis H. Surveys of child restraint use in New South Wales. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 4-7, 2001; Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2002	Lowne R, Le Claire M, Roy P, Paton I. Dedicated child attachment system (ISOFix). Traffic Inj Prev. 2002;3(1):19-29.