Child restraint system development in Australia

Griffiths, Michael; Brown, Julie; Kelly, Paul

Affiliations

Abstract

This paper reviews:

the development of child restraint systems in Australia,
current development work for improved Standards,
lessons learnt from real world performances, and
experience with reducing misuse.

Australian child restraints have taken on some unusual features compared to their North American and European counterparts:

Infant restraints are generally confined to the rear seat;
The most popular infant restraint is a detachable hand held capsule which leaves the base semi-permanently mounted in the car;
Most children go into forward facing restraints at the age of 5 or 6 months;
The forward facing restraints use a virtually mandatory 6 point harness with dual crotch straps, no shield style devices, no shoulder harness clips;
Top tether straps since 1976;
The Australian Standard is also arguably the toughest performance standard in the world with four separate crash sled tests for frontal, rearward, sideways and inverted impacts; and
Network of “Safety Restraint Fitting Stations” and associated developments resulting in misuse rates falling to below 20%.

Reviews of fatalities, children’s hospital admissions and mass crash data haven’t been able to find any of the neck injury problems reported with forward facing child restraints in North America and Europe.

Australia is also looking forward to better booster chairs offering higher levels of protection for the four to ten year olds and the incorporation of integrated child seats into new cars.

The paper questions, if Australia had validated and reported it’s experience with child restraint design in overseas proceedings and conferences, whether other parts of the world might have been able to make more timely use of lessons leamt the hard way through death and serious injury on Australian roads.

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1994	Henderson M, Brown J, Paine M. Injuries to restrained children. In: 38th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). September 21-23, 1994; Lyon, France.75-87.

Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
1998	Nett R, Appel H. Child safety in small and micro cars. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 31–June 4, 1998; Windsor, Ontario, Canada.1660-1664.
2013	Whitman GR, Hart AV III, Sicher L, Benda B, D’Aulerio LA. Minimizing the risk of lap/shoulder belted children submarining the lap belt in frontal crashes. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.
1995	Brown J, Kelly P, Griffiths M, Tong S, Pak R, Gibson T. The performance of tethered and untethered forward facing child restraints. In: Proceedings of the 1995 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 13-15, 1995; Brunnen, Switzerland.61-74.
1995	Kelly P, Brown J, Griffiths M. Child restraint performance in side impacts with and without top tethers and with and without rigid attachment (CANFIX). In: Proceedings of the 1995 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 13-15, 1995; Brunnen, Switzerland.75-90.
2008	Brown J. The Aetiology and Mechanisms of Serious Injury in Restrained Child Occupants [PhD thesis]. University of New South Wales; 2008.