A new study shows that many parents know that adult seat belts do not fit their older children properly, but use them anyway.

Researchers from the University of Michigan’s Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit and its Transportation Research Institute set out to determine the frequency with which drivers reported improper seat belt positioning among the Forgotten Child set – so named by the safety community, because these children have outgrown five-point child safety restraints, yet are too small for seat belts. This group of children needs the aid of a booster seat to achieve a proper belt fit, with the lap portion of the belt extended low across the hips, and the shoulder belt resting over the shoulder, rather than on the child’s neck.

The analysis, published in Academic Pediatrics, focused on caregiver responses to five questions in the phone-based 2007 Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety Survey regarding children, 4-9 years of age, and problems attributed to the lap belt, the shoulder belt or both.

Among 891 adults who drove children 4 to 9 years of age, the vast majority, 534 (60 percent) reported they always used a child safety seat. The second largest group, 241 (27percent) reported that they always used the vehicle seat belt. The remainder reported that they sometimes used either, or used no restraints at all. But the rate of child seat use steadily dropped as the children aged. By 9 years old, only 20 percent were always secured in child safety seats, compared to 61 percent of 4-6 year olds, according to parents’ responses.

Parents reported using seat belts for 334 (37 percent) of 4- to 9-year-old child passengers. And, of those, 78 percent of the drivers reported improper belt fit, with improper shoulder belt position accounting for 44 percent and improper lap belt position for 62 percent. At least one improper belt position was reported by about 78 percent of drivers, which, the researchers concluded, is the most important finding of the analysis: “Children who are prematurely restrained in an adult seat belt that does not fit properly are at increased risk of injury to the head, spine, and abdomen. Although improper lap belt positioning was more common, of greater clinical concern is that almost one-half of children were reported to have improper shoulder belt positioning. Our findings are consistent with laboratory evidence that demonstrates incorrect belt positioning is commonly the result of a mismatch between child body proportions and rear seat belt geometry. Even at age 9, most children’s thighs are too short to sit in most vehicle rear seats without slumping. The slumped postures invariably lead to poor lap belt fit. In regard to shoulder belt positioning, the discomfort associated with having the belt against the face or neck can trigger the child to put the belt under their arm or behind their back. Putting the belt under the arm or behind the back is a much more serious belt fit problem than a belt that rides close to the face or neck because these positions result in greater travel of the torso, compression of the abdomen, and stress on the spine as the body comes to a stop in a crash.”

The researchers surmised caregivers “may not be aware of proper seat belt positioning for the lap and shoulder belts or may not understand the serious and potentially permanent injuries that result from improper seat belt fit.” That confusion likely stems, at least in part, from state seat belt laws that do not address older children and “may indicate to parents that their child is ready to be transitioned from a belt-positioning booster seat to an adult seat belt before reaching the stature and maturity to ensure proper seat belt fit on every trip.” The researchers recommended that pediatricians inform their patients about the importance of seat belt fit.

New Child Dummies for Booster Seat Testing Offer Advancement – and Raise Significant Questions

Acknowledging concerns about the biofidelity of the new HIII 6-year-old dummy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a Final Rule on Sept. 9 allowing manufacturers of child restraint systems to test for FMVSS 213 compliance with either the Hybrid II 6-year-old dummy (H2-6C) or the advanced Hybrid III 6-year-old dummy (HIII-6C).

Touted by NHTSA as the state-of-the-art, more biofidelic child dummy, the HIII 6C also has increased instrumentation allowing for better assessment of impact responses such as neck moments and chest deflections not measured by the HII 6C. However, the new dummy is also designed differently than the HIII-6C – the neck and ribs are softer, and the thorax is stiffer, which can significantly alter the kinematics of the dummy during testing.

Outside testing entities, however, were not as impressed with the HIII-6C. TraumaLink test lab raised significant concerns with the performance of the dummy when their tests revealed extremely large neck elongation unlikely to be seen in children in real crashes, which resulted in high calculated injury values. TraumaLink suggested that this would predict a pattern of injuries not seen in the real world. They argued that the “softer neck” caused increased neck elongation and forward excursion resulting in higher Head Injury Criteria (HIC) from chin-to-chest contact and in some cases, head-to-knee contact.

SafetyBeltSafe concurred, documenting “unrealistic stretching and bending of this dummy’s neck while tightly restrained by a lap shoulder belt in a booster. The result was that the dummy’s face directly contacted the chest, generating an unrealistic and unacceptably high HIC.”

In fact, NHTSA’s Vehicle Research and Test Center (VRTC) tests with the dummy generated head excursion increases from 2 to 4.5 inches.

Researchers also expressed concern about the new HIII-6C dummies permanently flexed hips which don’t allow for a slouched position and may inhibit submarining in non-optimal booster designs.

The real question is whether the dummy differences are more or less like what occurs in the real world. It is clear from a variety of recent testing of child dummies in child restraints, booster seats and vehicle seat belts, that there are significant concerns with the ability of child dummies to predict child occupant kinematics. NHTSA states that these issues are still under investigation as research and development of the HIII-6C dummy continues, but until they are resolved, the manufacturers will have the option of using the dummy of their choice.

CPSC Addresses Table Saw Safety

This month, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require performance standards for a system to reduce or prevent injuries from contact with the blade of a table saw. The Oct. 11 announcement, in response to a 2003 petition, requested comments about performance safety standards to address injury. The CPSC study documented more than 60,000 blade contact injuries annually at a cost of $2.63 billion dollars each year, in 2007 and 2008.

Standard safety devices on table saws come in two forms: blade guards and kickback prevention devices. Traditional blade guards, however, can hinder table saw use, leading users to remove them. Blade guards can jam the work piece, block the user’s view and poorly align the splitter and the blade. In addition, difficult cuts actually require removal of the guard.

The initial voluntary standard published in 1971 by Underwriters Laboratories (UL987 Stationary and Fixed Electric Tools) has been revised many times, but essentially requires a guard that consists of a hood a spreader and a kickback device. The guard must completely enclose the sides and top of the saw blade above the table and automatically adjust to the thickness of the work piece. Performance requirements were subsequently added, which required new table saws to have a permanent riving knife that was adjustable for all table saw operations. The CPSC is still concerned that the UL standard does not adequately address blade contact injuries or the potential for removal of the safety components from the saw. In its proposal, CPSC documents an innovative modular blade guard design, and a new blade contact detection and reaction system that stops and retracts below the table when it detects contact with skin.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also has a regulation on table saws in the workplace that requires a guarded hood, inspections and maintenance of wood working machinery. The OSHA standards are effective in the workplace, but CPSC determined that home use by consumers needed additional protection.

The Commission requested comments on whether it should issue a voluntary standard, a mandatory rule or a labeling requirement for warnings on the device. They specifically requested suggestions for potential requirements for such a standard and information on new technologies that make table saws safer.

CPSC Proposes Mandatory Standard for Child Play Yard – Many Manufacturers’ Ignore Voluntary Standard

The CPSC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to regulate children’s play yards. A “play yard” is a framed enclosure that has a floor and mesh or fabric-sided panels, primarily intended to provide a play or sleeping environment for children, that can fold for storage or travel. They are intended for children who are less than 35 inches tall who cannot climb out of the product.

Of the 2.9 million play yards sold in the US each year, only about half of the manufacturers have certified them to the ASTM voluntary standard established by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (ASTM F-406-11). This may explain the numerous injuries and fatalities associated with play yards. The CPSC’s Directorate for Epidemiology reported 2,128 incidents from early November 2007 until early April 2011, including 49 fatalities and 165 nonfatal injuries. These incidents include suffocation from soft or extra bedding, and contusions and lacerations caused by the collapse of the side rail or sides of the structure, broken or detached component parts, and sharp surfaces.

The current ASTM standard for play yards is the basis for the proposed rule. This voluntary standard restricts sharp points and protrusions, lead paint and flammable solids and establishes requirements for stability, side height, floor strength, side deflection and corner bracket strength. The ASTM standard also contains requirements to protect children from entrapment and mattress displacement, and requirements that eliminate the risk that the outside rails collapse in a v-shape or result in a scissoring effect.

The new CPSC standard would incorporate the ASTM standard with a few changes intended to reduce the potential for improper testing, specifically related to the floor strength test and the corner bracket test.

FMVSS 213 Child Restraint Systems is an inadequate standard with a compliance test that bears no resemblance to what happens to children in a crash, according to a slew of child safety researchers at this year’s Enhanced Safety of Vehicles Conference. Some of the world’s top researchers, including those from child restraint manufacturers, seat belt manufacturers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, called for a strengthened standard that requires in-vehicle testing and dynamic side impact test procedures for child restraint systems.

The current FMVSS 213 requires sled-testing of 12 month-old, three- and six year-old dummies. The last substantive amendment to the rule was promulgated in 2003, to meet the demands of the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Acountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act of 2000. The Final Rule updated the bench seat in the sled buck; changed the sled pulse to provide a wider test corridor to make it easier for more test facilities to reproduce; improved the child test dummies; and included testing for child safety seats rated for children weighing up to 65 pounds. In announcing the Final Rule, the agency said that it didn’t do more for a variety of reasons related to time and money. The tight deadlines set by the TREAD Act made it impossible for NHTSA to develop and validate a side impact test, the agency said – although it vowed to continue research into such a component. The agency said that it did not believe that updating the seat assembly and revising the crash pulse would “affect dummy performance to an extent that benefits would accrue from such changes.”

Eight years later, child safety researchers say that without updating the seat assembly to simulate the rear seat compartment – or better still – require in-vehicle dynamic testing, the standard does little to raise the bar. The current FMVSS 213 sled buck has no front seat back or side components for the dummy or the child restraint to interact with. Research presented by Suzanne Tylko of Transport Canada shows that the lack of surface for the dummy or child restraint to impact renders head injury prediction useless. For example, the Transport Canada tests with rear-facing infant seats documented injurious head and child restraint impacts with vehicle components that would not show up in the compliance sled tests.

In addition, the U.S. has no side impact test standard for child restraints, and child restraints are not included in the current NCAP tests, unlike many other countries. Currently, Australia is the only country with mandatory side impact test requirements for child dummies, and Europe’s ADAC has a consumer test with child dummies in side impacts. Research presented at the meeting document the poor side impact protection for properly restrained child dummies.

At the conference, NHTSA presented some of that promised research into developing a dynamic side impact test procedure for child restraint systems. The agency evaluated the test seat cushion, the door panel, and armrest components to design a side impact sled test representative of real-world crashes. A comparison of sled buck characteristics to the fleet show seat cushion stiffness for the 213 sled test is too soft, dramatically altering dummy kinematics. In addition, the height of the seat dramatically affects the Head Injury Criterion (HIC). Position of the dummy with the head totally or mostly higher than the windowsill had lower HICs, while the head mostly or totally below the windowsill produced higher HICs.

In examining child restraints, NHTSA pointed out that the stiffness of the side wings provided for head protection, contributed to containment of the dummy, and reduced the injury measures. Their testing showed that larger wings with more padding produced lower HIC values in the forward facing seats but did not contribute to lower injury values in rear facing seats. (Transport Canada tests of infant seat tests noted that most do not have energy-absorbing padding in the head area that would dramatically reduce the HIC.)

Researchers from supplier Takata Corporation tested forward facing child restraint systems in vehicle-to-vehicle oblique side crash tests to investigate head contact of restrained children with the vehicle interior. In side impact, the car exhibited both roll and yaw, causing the dummy to move up relative to the seat and toward the door, and the dummy head to contact the glass and window sill, resulting in high HIC scores. They developed sled tests with side vehicle components to simulate the full vehicle crash tests.

Britax engineers stressed that their “Key Safety Objective” was to provide energy absorption for the whole dummy body and avoid head contact. Britax has developed side impact countermeasures that it says anticipate child seat-to-door contact focusing on improvement in head containment in booster seats.

Volvo documented serious head and face injuries in real-world oblique crashes, noting that pre-crash vehicle maneuvers and initial poor belt fit for properly restrained child occupants were a big part of the problem. Volvo testing repeatedly documented head contact with the side window and the front seat backs in oblique testing showing that properly restrained children can sustain head injuries from interior impact with the vehicle.  Their real-world driving maneuver and braking studies demonstrated that shoulder belts are routinely far out on the shoulder exacerbating the problem. Volvo claimed the vehicle manufacturer bore significant responsibility for this because it is not just the child restraint that protects the child; the vehicle plays a significant role. Vehicle side structure, for example, can limit motion of the dummy out of belt during normal driving. Also improvements in vehicle belt design, including pretentioners and load limiters, adapted to children, can improve protection.

The common thread running through these presentations: U.S. standards for rear seat occupant protection are severely lacking, especially for children, because they do not replicate the injury potential that occurs in real world crashes. This was reinforced by data provided by Kristy Arbogast, Associate Director of Engineering for The Center for Injury Research and Prevention at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, who once again documented that the injury risk is greater for all rear row occupants as compared to those in the front seats. In previous research presented at the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, Arbogast looked at the effect of reported deformation of the front seat back rearward on the injury risk to children seated in the rear in a rear-impact crash. CHOP researchers examined State Farm Insurance cases from 2000-2006 of 1,035 restrained child occupants under 12 years old, seated in a second-row outboard position in rear crashes to quantify the overall injury risk in relation to the presence of a front seat occupant and reported front seat-back deformation. Researchers found 2.3 percent of the children sustained an AIS 2+ injury; 71 percent of those crashes contained a front seat occupant, and eight percent of the cases reported front seat-back deformation.

NCAP Test Protocols Evaluating Dynamic Child Safety

o   Latin NCAP – incorporates 18 mo and 3 yo dummies in the frontal tests and child seat fit and vehicle instructions are viewed to make sure a seat can be installed safely and securely

o   Euro NCAP – incorporates 18 mo and 3 yo dummies in the frontal tests

o   JNCAP – child seats are tested in the frontal impacts, also includes a child restraint and rear seat belt usability evaluation, and rear seat passenger protection as a part of the frontal offset test

o   ANCAP – incorporates 18 mo and 3 yo dummies in the frontal offset tests

o   USNCAP – includes child restraint usability ratings only – no dynamic test ratings with child restraints in the vehicles

BOSTON, MASS – In September, Massachusetts passed the toughest ATV law in the nation, becoming the first state to ban All-Terrain Vehicle use for children 14 years and younger. In October, researchers for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced the results of a study showing that ATVs were responsible for significant and rising hospitalizations of children 18 and younger.

In nearly 40 years of recreational use in the U.S., ATVs have been injuring and killing children. Thirty years of government intervention have managed to lessen the mayhem, but not stop it. Today, with a ban on three-wheeled ATVs in place and some mandatory standards, the CPSC, bolstered by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), is still contemplating changes to further protect children.

“We are absolutely concerned for the safety of children,” says CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson. “We continue to see a staggering number of deaths and injuries that are related to young riders being on or driving adult-sized models.”

Dr. Peter Masiakos, a Mass General emergency room surgeon who led the fight for “Sean’s Law,” treated 8-year-old Sean Kearney when he was transported to the hospital by helicopter after an ATV crash. Masiakos says the problem goes much deeper.

“We started with the premise that nothing has worked so far,” he says. “Despite the preaching of the industry, we know that people don’t train and we know that people don’t wear helmets and we know people don’t use safety equipment. The one thing we know for sure is that the outcomes are worse. The number of injuries has gone up and the number of deaths has gone up.”

JHU’s Center for Injury Research and Policy documented this rising tide of injury by examining hospitalizations for ATV injuries from 1997-2006. The researchers found an alarming 150 percent increase in children under the age of 18, with the most dramatic increases in the South and Midwest, among 15-17-year-olds. Boys are still the most likely victims of an ATV mishap, but the study also charted a big jump – 260 percent – in ATV-related hospitalizations for girls, ages 15-17. The study is expected to be published in December’s issue of the Journal of Trauma. In a press release announcing the study’s results, Stephen M. Bowman, PhD, MHA, and assistant professor with the Center and the report’s lead author, speculated that a mismatch between the rider and the machine was behind the data.

“All-Terrain Vehicles are inherently dangerous to children,” Bowman said. “While manufacturers are required to label vehicles with engine sizes greater than 90cc as inappropriate for children younger than sixteen, our data indicate that a growing number of children are receiving serious injuries due to ATV use, suggesting that parents are unaware of these recommendations or are choosing to ignore them.”

Co-author Mary E. Aitken, a professor of pediatrics at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, issued a call to action to the CPSC:

“Clearly, too many children are being injured on these vehicles. Given the dramatic increases in hospitalization that we report, a renewed effort by the public health community, the ATV industry and the CPSC to address this problem is warranted,” she said.

The CPSC has long done battle with the industry and a vocal group of ATV enthusiasts who object to government restrictions on their use. In 1988, the CPSC and the ATV industry signed a 10-year consent decree to reduce injury risks. Among the provisions were free training for riders, warning labels, a public education campaign and a ban on three-wheeled ATVs. After the decree expired, some manufacturers voluntarily continued these practices; others did not. While other researchers have looked at injuries and deaths in the immediate aftermath of the decree expiration, the JHU study is the first to look at the long-term effects.

The CPSC, meanwhile, continues to tally the damage each year. Its most recent report, issued in January 2010, noted that between 1982-2008 9,633 deaths occurred. ATV deaths increased in 2006, 2007 and 2008 – which had the highest single year death toll of 461. Children accounted for a significant percentage of the total: 2,588 decedents (27 percent) were younger than 16 years of age and 1,102 (11 percent) were under 12.

“We want parents to think about the consequences of going from a youth model with a speed limited to 15-30 mph, and a model weight of 200-250 pounds, to jumping on the father’s ATV that weights 500 pounds and goes 50 mph,” Wolfson said. “The consequences are deadly.”

During the years that the consent decree was in place, ATV-related injuries and deaths dropped, but as soon as the decree expired, the rates began climbing again. The CPSC counts a smaller subset of youthful riders – placing the dividing line between child and adult riders at age 16 to correlate with the current youth model age ranges. Therefore, the commission does not record the same rate of injury increases as did the researchers from Johns Hopkins University. The CPSC annual reports show that the percentage of ATV-related injuries and death dropped to 28 percent of the total reported injuries in 2008. But children still represent a sizeable portion of the annual total of injuries and deaths.

Today, some older three-wheeled ATVs may still be in use, but nearly all are four-wheeled vehicles. In 2006, the commission had begun a rulemaking on ATVs, but before it could be completed, the CPSIA directed the CPSC to make ATV voluntary safety standards mandatory and prohibited the sale of three-wheeled ATVs. The mandatory standard became effective in April 2009.

The CPSC is still reviewing the range of youth models, and determining whether the mandatory standards are adequate. Wolfson said that the current generation of youth models might not be sized appropriately for today’s youth.

“You can have a situation where a 14-year-old ATV rider is put on an adult model because it looked right,” Wolfson said. “We are trying to work with new rules that would create more youth models reflective of the size of those riders, yet, we still control maximum speed and limit the weight of the ATV.”

The CPSC wants the industry to resume offering free training nationwide, and they are considering requiring adult purchasers to sign a document warning that placing youthful riders on adult-sized machines could result in death. Finally, the CPSC is consulting with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine if stability standards should be established.

Masiakos says that tinkering with the vehicle or adding training is simply not sufficient to compensate for the developmental deficits inherent in child riders. Children under 16 years of age don’t have the judgment and skills to handle a 250-pound motorized vehicle that can travel more than 30 mph, as many youth models do.

The Massachusetts law, championed by the Massachusetts Prevent Injuries Now Network (Mass PINN), was inspired by a 2005 measure adopted by the Nova Scotia legislature. It banned children under 14 from riding ATVs anywhere except on a closed course, with parental supervision and the presence of a person with advanced first-aid training standing by. Nova Scotia adopted the ban after a crash that killed three teenage girls. Masiakos says that the ban reduced the child ATV injury rate by 50 percent in one year.

“I’m passionate about it, because I experience the injuries and they are preventable,” he says. “Parents don’t understand the risks involved. They are marketed as a recreational item, not as a motorized vehicle,” he said. “But it’s misguided to think they are safe and think they can be made safer by changing the throttle, the engine displacement and changing the weight.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eleven years after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration establish performance standards for school bus occupant protection systems in all types of collisions, the NTSB removed it from the top-ten list of most wanted safety improvements.

The NTSB voted to drop “Enhanced Protection for School Bus Passengers” from the annual list last month, after NHTSA issued a Final Rule that increased seatback height, and established performance specifications for voluntarily installed seat belts.

The agency’s actions actually fell short of the NTSB’s original recommendations, issued in 1999. At that time, the NTSB urged NHTSA to develop performance standards for school bus occupant protection systems that would work in all crash types. Further, and more importantly, the NTSB wanted NHTSA to require such systems in all newly constructed school buses, “including those in child safety restraint systems, within the seating compartment throughout the accident sequence for all accident scenarios.”

NHTSA’s response has been much more limited.

By the NTSB’s timetable, older bus riders have not fared even half as well. In 1999, the NTSB also issued recommendations to improve occupant protection in motor coaches. The board’s original suggestions to NHTSA included a redesign of motor coach window emergency exits for easy egress, stronger roofs and the establishment of an occupant ejection mitigation standard. In 2008, the NTSB rated NHTSA’s progress as “yellow,” indicating slow progress forward, because in 2007 the agency performed a full-scale frontal crash test for research purposes and followed up in 2008 with some roof strength and sled tests. But in lieu of any agency action, the NTSB ranked this most-wanted as red, meaning no real progress.

The designation is ironic, given that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has jump-started the agency’s motorcoach safety effort with the November release of an ambitious action plan. Emanating from an April 30 directive to develop an integrated approach to motorcoach safety, the plan encompasses seven actions that would have the greatest impact on improving motorcoach safety. Among the regulatory responsibilities for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) are rulemakings to require electronic on-board recording devices on all motorcoaches to monitor drivers’ hours and fatigue; and to propose prohibiting texting and limiting the use of cellular telephones and other devices by motorcoach drivers. NHTSA would be required to initiate rulemaking to require the installation of seat belts on motor coaches; rulemaking to improve tire performance and establish performance requirements for roof crush and for ESC on motorcoaches.

The NTSB also listed as yellow the prohibition of cell phone use by motor coach drivers. Any such regulation would fall under the jurisdiction of the FMCSA. To date, the agency has only studied the issue in determining if it should establish a regulation limiting cell phone use by commercial drivers. In July 2009, it released the results of a naturalistic driving study it commissioned the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to do. The FMSCA has taken a more aggressive stance against texting while driving. (See FMCSA Issues Texting Ban; Advocates Say It’s a Good First Step, p. 7 )

Other slow-moving perennials on the top-ten list were: preventing collisions by using enhanced vehicle safety technology and preventing medically unqualified drivers from operating commercial vehicles.

The NTSB said that the FMSCA was not making enough progress in the areas of requiring electronic onboard data recorders for commercial vehicles and in promulgating rules preventing motor carriers from operating if they put vehicles with mechanical problems on the road or unqualified drivers behind the wheel.

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has leveled the second largest fine against a lead paint violator and prohibited the company from selling children’s toys and products in the U.S. until it creates a comprehensive safety plan.

In early March, Daiso Seattle LLC, of Seattle, Wash. and Daiso California LLC, of Hayward, Calif. agreed to pay $2.05 million in civil penalties, after the CPSC alleged that Daiso violated the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA) by distributing children’s products with high lead paint and phthalate concentrations and toys with small parts for children under three years of age, without proper warning labels. Under the consent decree, Daiso agreed to a take a number of steps to ensure product safety in the future.

Daiso’s fine was just a hair under the highest penalty ever levied against a manufacturer by the CPSC for violating the old limits on lead paint in children’s products. In June, Mattel/Fisher Price agreed to pay a $2.35 million penalty. In total, the agency has imposed nearly $8 million in civil fines. Under these settlements, manufacturers are allowed to deny the CPSC allegations that they knowingly violated a 30-year-old law limiting the lead content in paint to .06 percent in paints and surface coatings. Nonetheless, advocates say that the settlements send a strong message to industry about the CPSC’s newfound intolerance for companies that import products that harm children.

“I feel there’s a renewed commitment to safety in these actions,” says Nancy Cowles, executive director of the advocacy group, Kids In Danger. “It won’t be a slap on the wrist – you won’t be able to ignore the requirements. You are actually going to have to pay fines. That injunction (against Daiso), they’ve never done that before. That’s an interesting part of the whole package.”

Under the consent agreement, Daiso must complete a number of steps before the CPSC will allow the company to resume selling children’s products. The company must conduct a product audit to determine which merchandise requires testing and certification; establish and implement product safety testing; retain an independent product safety coordinator; a third-party testing entity and toxicologist and/or an accredited testing laboratory; create guidance manuals for managers and employees on how to comply with product safety requirements; and establish recall procedures. Finally, the company has to demonstrate to the commission that it understands its safety obligations and is in compliance with all federal laws.

Since June, the CPSC announced that it had levied fines of more than $3.1 million against 13 children’s product manufacturers, importers and sellers to settle the federal lead paint ban. The settlements covered toys, children’s metal jewelry, children’s pens, metal water bottles, pencil pouches, sunglasses and children’s Halloween pails and baskets recalled in 2007 and 2008 that also violated the 1978 limits on lead in children’s products.

The companies are: RC2 Target Corp. of Minneapolis, Minn., $600,000; OKK Trading, of Commerce, Calif. $665,000; Schylling Associates Inc., of Rowley, Mass., $200,000; Excelligence Learning Corp. of Monterey, CA, $25,000; Cardinal Distributing Co. Inc., of Baltimore, Md., $100,000; Dollar General Corp., of Goodlettsville, Tenn., $100,000; Family Dollar Stores Inc., of Matthews, N.C., $75,000; Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., of Oklahoma City, Okla., $50,000; First Learning Company Ltd., of Hong Kong, $50,000; Michaels Stores Inc., of Irving, Texas, $45,000; A&A Global Industries Inc., of Cockeysville, Md., $40,000; Raymond Geddes & Co, of Baltimore, Md., $40,000; and Downeast Concepts Inc., of Yarmouth, Maine, $30,000.

These settlements reflect violations under the more lenient lead limits dictated by a 32-year-old regulation. Under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, products sold to children must be manufactured under more stringent guidelines. In August, the allowable amount of lead in surface coatings of children’s products dropped to .009 percent. The commission has not yet enforced the new, tougher, lead limits under the CPSIA; the lead testing provision is currently under a stay, designed to provide temporary relief to manufacturers while they gear up to adhere to the new regulations.

Rachel Weintraub, Director of Product Safety and Senior Counsel at Consumer Federation of America, called it “the dawning of a new CPSC.” She praised the commission not only for holding companies responsible for complying with the law, but for “creatively” imposing sanctions such as the injunction against Daiso.

Weintraub also pointed out that the CPSC recently broke with past practice, issuing a general warning to the public about the dangers of baby slings about two weeks before manufacturer Infantino LLC recalled more than 1 million baby slings. Infantino announced the recall on March 24, after three infant deaths were reported. The U.S. CPSC issued a general warning on March 12, “advising parents and caregivers to be cautious when using infant slings for babies younger than four months of age, based on a survey of incident reports from the past 20 years and open investigations into at least 14 deaths associated with sling-style infant carriers, including three in 2009.”

“The recall wasn’t ready to be announced, but they wanted to warn the public about baby slings, and that is not something that we have seen for a long time – using their ability to communicate hazards to the public,” Weintraub said.

ARLINGTON, VA — The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released its latest ratings for boosters, and out of 60 models gave 15 models high marks and dinged 11 as “not recommended.” Meanwhile, a statistical analysis of the association between booster seat use and the risk of death found that boosters were no better than seatbelts alone in preventing death among 4-8-year-old children.

Researchers T.M. Rice, C.L. Anderson, and A.S. Lee of the University of California, Berkley’s Traffic Safety Center and the Center for Trauma and Injury Prevention Research at the University of California Irvine’s Department of Emergency Medicine conducted a matched cohort study (matching exposed to unexposed persons prior to outcome determination) using 1996-2006 data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The sample of 6,006 vehicles included those with two or more occupants in the first two rows of seating, with one or more occupants aged 4-8 years old in which one or more occupants died.

The analysis, published in Injury Prevention, showed that seat belts, used with booster seats, were “highly effective” in preventing death among young motor vehicle occupants. In a severe crash, unrestrained children in the sample were 2.8 times more likely to die than those restrained in seat belts with boosters. The effectiveness for children 6-8 years was slightly less. But the study showed that belts alone were almost as effective: “Unrestrained children were 2.6 times more likely to suffer fatal injury than belted children. The estimated death risk ratio comparing seatbelts with boosters with seatbelts alone was 0.92.”

The researchers concluded that, in looking at the risk of death only, “booster seats do not appear to improve the performance of seatbelts.” They also noted that these results were similar to a 2002 study published in the Annual Proceedings Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine.

The numbers did not lead the researchers to recommend that young children use seatbelts alone because other studies show that booster seats reduce non-fatal injury severity – the abdominal and spinal injuries characteristic of seatbelt syndrome.

“Clinicians and injury prevention specialists should continue to recommend the use of boosters to parents of young children,” the study’s authors said.

IIHS’s second annual recommended booster seat list attempts to help parents and caregivers select the booster seats “most likely to provide good lap and shoulder belt fit in a range of vehicles,” the institute said in a news release about rankings. In its first year, the institute evaluated 41 seats. This latest round covers nearly all models sold in the United States. Eventually, IIHS plans to structure its booster seat ratings like its Top Safety Pick awards, evaluating new models as they are released to the public.

Institute engineers assess each model by measuring how lap shoulder belts fit a “specially outfitted” 6-year-old crash test dummy under “four conditions spanning the range of safety belt configurations in vehicle models. Each booster gets four scores for lap belt fit and four for shoulder belt fit. The overall rating for each booster is based on the range of scores for each measurement,” the news release said.

The IIHS’s best-rated boosters are: the Combi Dakota backless with clip, Recaro Young Sport highback (combination seat), Recaro Vivo highback, Maxi-Cosi Rodi XR dual-use highback, Evenflo Big Kid Amp backless with clip, Eddie Bauer Auto Booster dual-use highback, Cosco Juvenile Pronto dual-use highback, Britax Frontier highback.

The Institute did not recommend: Harmony Secure Comfort Deluxe backless with clip, Combi Kobuk dual-use highback, Evenflo Express highback (combination), Eddie Bauer Deluxe highback (combination), and Evenflo Sightseer highback. Also on the list are 3-in-1s including the Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite, Alpha Omega Elite, Eddie Bauer Deluxe 3-in-1, Safety 1st All-in-One, Alpha Omega Luxe Echelon, and Alpha Omega.

Half of the boosters that aren’t recommended are 3-in-1s that leave the lap belt too high on the abdomen and the shoulder belt too far out on the shoulder. One seat, the Harmony Secure, has armrests that push the lap belt away from the hips, way out on a child’s thighs. Shoulder belt fit is the main problem for the rest — the Combi, 2 Evenflos, and the Eddie Bauer Deluxe.

Dorel Juvenile Group, the largest US children’s gear distributor, makes three of the most highly recommended boosters and seven of those that aren’t recommended. Dorel seats sell under the names Cosco, Dorel, Eddie Bauer, Maxi-Cosi, and Safety 1st.

These recent developments contradict, in part, earlier findings by researcher Suzanne Tylko of Transport Canada, who reported three years ago that a five-point restraint system is the safest option for children.

Transport Canada measured the performance of booster seats with child Hybrid III dummies representing a 10- and 6-year-olds in full frontal rigid barrier and frontal offset deformable barrier tests. The 6-year-old dummy was restrained in a belt-positioning booster and the 10-year-old was restrained with either a booster or a three-point belt. Tylko and her colleague Dainius Dalmotas tested 77 passenger cars, cross-over vehicles, minivans and SUVs from the 2003-2005 model years, paired with low-back and high-back boosters, high-back boosters with a harness latch and tether and a lap and shoulder belt.

In the tests involving the six-year-old dummy in a lap and shoulder belt, the belt would either slide up into the neck or down to the shoulder, as the dummy pitched forward. In the latter case, some dummies rolled out of the belt entirely—particularly if there was any offset component to the crash—causing the head and chest to hit its lower extremities. Tylko found little difference among booster seats. All of them – unlike three-point belts alone – effectively kept the lap portion of the belt in the pelvic region, and prevented it from traveling into the abdominal cavity. But boosters didn’t do much to protect the child’s chest region, failing to keep them properly positioned in an adult three-point belt.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Only power windows with express-up designs would have to be equipped with an auto-reverse feature, and all vehicles will have to install a brake to shift interlock, under two notices of proposed rulemaking published in the last month.

NHTSA proposed these rules to satisfy two mandates contained within the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, inadvertently backed over him, because the blind-zone behind his SUV made it impossible to see the toddler. The legislation required NHTSA to – for the first time – develop a rearward visibility standard, mandate a brake-to-shift-interlock and require power windows to have an automatic reverse feature.

Longtime NHTSA activist Janette Fennell, founder of Kids and Cars, is vowing to fight the agency’s weak power window proposal.

“This is an issue people have been working on since the advent of power windows, back in the 60s,” she says. “There’s plenty of research and understanding that power windows exert so much force when they are going up that they can injure, maim and kill. But there’s just been terrible resistance to prevent that from happening. There have been numerous petitions and numerous people bringing this to auto manufacturers and NHTSA, and it just keeps coming back: Not enough people die to make this change. This is the farthest we’ve ever gotten and I’m not giving up. We can’t let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”

The agency has been working to satisfy the mandates of the Gulbransen bill since March, when NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a rearward visibility standard that would expand the required field of view to enable drivers to detect areas behind the motor vehicle.

In August, the agency followed up with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require a brake-to-shift-interlock be installed in all automatic transmission vehicles manufactured for sale after September 2010. This aspect of the Gulbransen Act was the lowest hanging fruit for the agency, since in August in 2006, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers reached a voluntary agreement which required full implementation of BTSI not later than September 1, 2010.  Consumer advocates continued to lobby for a regulation that would cover all vehicles sold in the U.S. – not just those from the major automakers. They also wanted a rule that would require the brake-to-shift interlock to work when the key was in any position – including the accessory position – that could start the vehicle – an important omission of the voluntary agreement.

NHTSA’s proposed rule would require that the service brake pedal be depressed before the transmission can be shifted out of ‘‘park,’’ and would function in any starting system key position. Like the voluntary agreement, automakers would be required to install them on vehicles manufactured for sale after September 1, 2010.

The Gulbransen Safety Act gave the agency a lot more leeway in the power window rulemaking. NHTSA has taken a half step – proposing a rule that only requires an auto-reverse system (ARS) for power windows with an express button – meaning those that close with one touch of the button. NHTSA said that mandating ARS on all windows was unnecessary because the majority of the safety problem was addressed by the new ‘‘safer switch’’ requirements. While auto-reverse might prevent these myriad minor injuries, the agency said that the K.T. Safety Act’s purpose was to prevent deaths and serious injuries to children, so it focused its safety analysis on the most grievous cases of power window entrapment.

Fennell argued that switch design is only part of the problem. Although there have been cases in which a child kneeling on a rocker switch activated the window, there have been just as many cases when someone else in the car was activating the window. Fennell maintains that the agency’s data collection efforts are not vigorous enough and that the agency tends to artificially reduce the scope of the safety problem by automatically throwing out any instance in which the way the window was activated was inconclusive. Further, she says all of the vehicles with one-touch power window closure already have an auto-reverse feature, so no car maker is actually affected by the proposal.

“NHTSA is supposed to be a safety agency. The proposed rule does nothing to reduce one injury or one death. Why do all vehicles in Europe have auto-reverse? Because it’s safe. I’m not happy with this. They’ve really done nothing.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.—NHTSA’s regulatory dance card is mighty full for the next five months, with a clutch of substantive rulemakings that includes developing a performance standard for full and partial ejection mitigation, restraints on motor coaches, boosters for older children and a rearward visibility standard – nearly all mandated by Congress.

The agency’s official shortlist, published in the Federal Register on July 1, contains several significant areas for immediate rulemaking ranging from occupant protection to regulations that would reduce deaths and injuries to children in and around vehicles. In the future, the agency will turn its attention toward possible rulemakings for crash avoidance technology, such as lane departure warning systems and automatic braking in advance of an impending crash.

Of course, making the list, which covers this year through 2011, doesn’t mean NHTSA will actually make it happen, but we’ve summarized the highlights below:

Rules for Children

Of the rulemakings regarding children, three were required by the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act of 2007. This measure, adopted after five years of intense lobbying, compels NHTSA to develop a rearward visibility standard, mandate a brake-to-shift-interlock and require power windows to have an automatic reverse feature. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, inadvertently backed over him, because the blindzone behind his SUV made the toddler impossible to see.

In March, NHTSA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on establishing a rearward view standard in March. It did not outline a possible performance standard, but presented the research it had done to date and sought answers to 52 different questions in seven different areas, including the scope of the problem, technologies for improving rear visibility, effectiveness, driver behavior, options for measuring rear visibility and countermeasure performance. It expects to publish an NPRM this year, with a Final Rule in 2011.

NHTSA also expects to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to consider requiring power windows to automatically reverse direction when, upon closing, the window detects an obstruction, to prevent children and others from being trapped, injured, or killed. Under the language of the law, the agency would have 18 months to initiate the process and 30 months to establish the standard. But, the provision allows the Secretary of Transportation to decline to make a rule requiring the feature, if the secretary determines “that no additional safety standards are reasonable, practicable, and appropriate.”

The brake to shift interlock (BTSI) is a safer regulatory bet. In 2006, the major automakers who comprise the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. attempted to head off legislation by announcing that its members had voluntarily committed to installing brake-to-shift interlocks by 2010. Safety advocates, however, were disturbed by the loopholes in the agreement. For one, manufacturers with new entries into the market, from China for example, would have no obligation to include a BTSI. Further, the agreement did not require the brake-to-shift interlock to work regardless of the key position, meaning that the BTSI might not work when the key is in the accessory position. Finally, advocates criticized the agreement because consumers wouldn’t know which vehicles did not have a BTSI. An NPRM is slated to be published this year.

The fourth rulemaking that could improve automotive safety for children is a scheduled Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to add requirements to FMVSS 213 Child Restraint Systems for booster seats for older children, and add a 10-year-old crash test dummy to the regulation. The agency has been working on this for four years. The most recent rulemaking was in January 2008, when NHTSA published an SNPRM that proposed seating procedures for positioning the Hybrid III 10-year-old child dummy and the HIII 6-year-old child dummy in booster seats when the dummies are used in the FMVSS 213 compliance tests.

Safety for the Rest of Us

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) Act required the agency to publish a final rule establishing performance standards to reduce complete and partial ejections of vehicle occupants from outboard seating positions by October 1, 2009. The first phase of the agency’s effort was amending FMVSS 214 Side Impact in September 2007, to include a side-impact pole test. This rule had the effect of requiring side air curtains, at least for front seat passengers. According to an earlier plan, the second phase is to establish occupant containment performance requirements, which included the development of a test methodology to evaluate the performance of ejection mitigation systems, including side curtain airbags and improved glazing. The third phase is to establish performance requirements for rollover sensors, to ensure that the air bags will deploy in a rollover crash. The agency describes the rule thus: “This proposed standard would reduce the partial and total ejection of vehicle occupants through side windows in crashes, particularly rollover crashes.” There were few hints on how that would be accomplished.

After decades of buying the Motor Coach industry’s rap at retail, the agency is about to get serious about motor coach safety. Bus manufacturers have fended off regulations for decades, arguing that occupants were adequately protected from crash forces by compartmentalization – the space around them enclosed by the seat backs behind and in front of them and the side structure. The compartment, however, was open on three sides. The large picture windows tended to fail in a crash, leading to fatal ejections. In rollovers, occupants and their possessions are tossed right out of their compartments and sustain injuries from contact with the roof and other occupants. Performance standards for motor coaches in various crashes has been on the National Transportation Safety Board’s list for at least 11 years, but the agency has shown little interest beyond gathering the players for conferences in which industry representatives defended the status quo. At one such event, in 2002, then-Associate Administrator for Safety Standards Stephen Kratzke assured the industry that the agency wouldn’t promulgate any regulations – “just to do something.” Proposals would be based on “solid data,” he promised.

In the Future, We Just Won’t Crash

Looking ahead, NHTSA sees crash avoidance as the next frontier. It intends to focus its research on developing performance criteria and tests for systems that automatically apply the brakes when the vehicle senses an impending crash, lane departure warning systems and vehicle to vehicle communications systems. The pre-crash warning and brake assist technology is already offered on some Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota and Ford vehicles. These systems use radar sensors to monitor the traffic in front of the vehicle, and if the distance between the vehicle and the one in front of it is too small, the driver receives a warning and the brakes may be primed for maximum power, or automatically applied. Other systems tighten the seat belts and activate the airbags, as well.

NHTSA has already developed a performance test for New Car Assessment Program that will debut for the 2011 model year. The agency expects to decide if it will require automatic crash-imminent braking.

Similarly, the agency plans to establish performance criteria and tests for lane departure warning systems, which have also debuted on Toyota, GM, Nissan, Honda and Mercedes vehicles. Again, NHTSA has already developed a performance test for the NCAP to apply to the 2011 model year. The next agency decision, scheduled for 2011, will be whether to require them.

Further into the future, NTSA is contemplating a technologically advanced automotive environment, in which vehicles communicate with one another to avoid collisions. Some prototype vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems send out speed, GPS location and braking information for crash avoidance, speed management, intersection collision avoidance and traffic congestion. These systems are in development among the major manufacturers. Vehicle-to-vehicle systems only work if a critical mass of the fleet is so-equipped. Last year, the European Union laid the groundwork of a widespread vehicle-to-vehicle communications landscape by reserving an EU-wide frequency band for automotive use. NHTSA forecasts that its next agency decision will be in 2013.

WASHINGTON – When the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act was signed into law last August, proponents characterized it as the most significant upgrade to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s powers since the agency was established in 1972. But, according to a new report, the implementation of these sweeping changes “is not going well.”

The April report, compiled by the Congressional Research Service, describes an agency overwhelmed with multiple statutory deadlines,” and a business community beset by confusion over the new lead limits for products intended for children 12 and under. Small businesses, and consignment and thrift stores have had the toughest time understanding how the law applies to their older inventory, but other industries have also been paralyzed. The report noted that despite the CPSC’s attempts to clarify the new regulations, fear of incurring costly penalties for violating the CPSIA, or of enforcement actions by state attorneys general, or liability lawsuits are stifling sales of older merchandise.

Alarmed by a record 448 recalls last year, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act this summer. It requires the CPSC to expand its regulation of children’s products and to toughen its oversight of imported products. It also gave the CPSC more recall authority, more money and staff – raising the funding from $80 million in 2008 to $136 million in 2014 and increasing fulltime staffing from 420 to 500. With these tools, CPSC was expected to improve children’s product safety, import safety, enforcement and administrative procedures. Instead, the agency finds itself besieged by industry requests to delay implementation and unable to claim absolute authority over its decisions to create a more orderly transition to the new rules.

The broadest and most troublesome provisions ban paint and children’s products that contain more than a minimal amount of lead or phthalates (a plasticizer added to polyvinyl chloride [PVC] to make it more flexible) and expanded the definition of children’s products to include all goods that are primarily intended for those under the age of 12.

The ATV industry, for example, is grappling with the Commission’s recent decision to allow them to sell older models of youth ATVs that exceed the strict lead limits. The Commission’s only two members granted a two-year stay of enforcement, to give companies time to unload their inventory. The industry had argued for relief, saying that the lead in the non-compliant models is necessary for durability and to prevent corrosion and that it is found in components that children are unlikely to come in contact with.

They had pleaded for time to design and test models that would contain less lead, but many are reluctant to accept the agency’s response as definitive. Trade organizations fear that the stay does not shield them sufficiently from liability lawsuits or other state and federal actions and are now looking for Congress to amend the law.

The act empowers state attorneys general to enforce the CPSIA, meaning they could ignore the commission’s stay and prosecute a retailer for violating the law. The CPSC has no authority over attorneys general to require that they honor any of the commission’s exemptions or temporary suspensions.

Republican Chairman Nancy Nord famously lobbied against most of the provisions of the act, such as those that would expand the agency’s staff and budget. She also objected to the ban on lead in children’s products, calling it impractical, and asked congress to strike the portion of the bill allowing attorneys general to prosecute violators. In attempting to mediate between panicked industries and fast-moving deadlines, Nord has repeatedly told trade groups that the CPSC cannot amend the act and has complained about its prescriptive nature.

In January, the Motorcycle Industry Council also sought a temporary final rule to exclude a class of materials found in motorcycles so that those products would not be in violation of the CPSIA. But the CPSC’s General Counsel responded that the agency did not have the authority, under the act, to grant it. “Currently, dealers around the nation say they have taken roughly $100 million worth of child-sized bikes off showroom floors. Dealers fear stiff fines for selling non-compliant products— various components (including battery terminals and tire stems) exceed the new lead limits,” the report said.

Other manufacturing organizations also got a glass-half-full response to their requests for relief. A group led by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) petitioned the agency to delay the February 10 effective date and issue compliance guidance. Instead the commission offered “limited relief” from enforcement of testing and certifications for one year for manufacturers and importers of regulated products, including products intended for children. But the NAM coalition protested that the enforcement stay only confused the issue, because the enforcement stay did not exempt them from complying with the CPSIA requirements, and still left manufacturers open to prosecution.

The agency also tried to better explain the duties and responsibilities of re-sellers of children’s products and ended up sowing more confusion. The January Guidance Intended for Resellers of Children’s Products Thrift and Consignment Stores attempted to emphasize that the commission’s enforcement priority was manufacturers and reiterated that the CPSIA does not require resellers to test their children’s products for compliance on lead limits. But the agency also said: “However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties.”

In the meantime, several members of Congress, including Congressman John D. Dingell, chairman emeritus of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairmen and Senators John D Rockefeller and Mark L. Pryor,and Representatives Henry A. Waxman and Bobby L. Rush, the Subcommittee Chairmen of the Senate and House committees responsible for overseeing the CPSC have attempted to sort it out, sending letters to the agency demanding that it act quickly to dispel the confusion and address the implementation issues. The latter four also wrote to President Obama blaming Nord for mishandling the CPSIA and strongly suggesting new leadership was needed. Despite this, says the congressional report, “it is still far from clear whether the problem is with the CPSIA itself or with the manner in which the CPSC is administering it. And, by the same token, it is uncertain whether the agency could resolve many of the issues itself, or if it is wholly a matter for Congress to decide.”

President Barack Obama’s choice to replace Nord, Inez Moore Tenenbaum, will inherit these problems if the Senate confirms her nomination. The former South Carolina education superintendent is likely to have more allies on the commission. Under the CPSIA, the body will expand to five members. Obama has also nominated Robert Adler, a professor legal studies at the University of North Carolina, an advisor to former commission members and a member of Consumers Union’s board of directors, to serve on the CPSC.