In spite of world-wide attempts to develop for the newly born infant, crash protective gear that does not require a supplementary restraining device, every commercially available infant restraint seen by the authors uses one.

This paper reports crash studies (in field or laboratory) on protective gear that incorporates one of the three devices net, sack or harness - and on prototype equipment that uses no supplement to the basic infant carrier.

The authors also discuss the behavioural problems involved in obtaining the co-operation of parents in the use of nets, sacks and harnesses, emphasising the need either to modify this behaviour or to produce protective gear that does not depend for its crash-effectiveness so much on parental cooperation.