New Report Says Company Puts Profits Before Child Safety With Booster Seat Designed to Prevent Car Accident Injuries
Is your kid’sec booster place actually capable of preventing injuries inwards the effect of a machine accident? According to a recent study from ProPublica, the Evenflo “Big Kid” booster seats may have a serious marketing defect that could upshot in kid injuries as well as deaths inward motor vehicle collisions. As the report explains, “internal video of side-bear on tests shows that children could be injured or killed inward Evenflo’s ‘Big Kid’ booster seats,” yet Evenflo “continued to market place them every bit side-bear on tested.” And i of the virtually troubling pieces of data is that the company may have known most the job for well-nigh a decade.
As the study explains, an Evenflo condom engineer recommended that the society “stop selling booster seats for children who weigh less than twoscore pounds,” suggesting that the seats could non foreclose injuries equally the marketing suggested. The engineer, Eric Dahle, made this recommendation dorsum in Feb 2012. At that time, he “emailed high-ranking executives to tell them that children lighter than twoscore pounds would be safer in motorcar seats that role harnesses to concur their minor bodies inward place.” Dahle cited existing research, and besides argued that making these changes would “tally Canadian regulations as well as improve align amongst recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.”
Evenflo Child Booster Seats May Not Protect Children From Car Accident Injuries
Yet Evenflo—one of the largest makers of kid prophylactic seats—did not heed Dahle’sec recommendation. Instead, internal records from the society exhibit that a marketing executive was responsible for vetoing the engineer’sec recommendation, and fifty-fifty wrote in an email, “why are we even talking almost this?” That marketing executive as well wrote emphatically, “I accept looked at xl lbs for the US numerous times and volition not approve this.” Evenflo continued to sell the Big Kid booster place together with to market it for children who weighed under forty pounds. Moreover, Evenflo marketed the booster place equally one that had been side-impact tested even though “its ain tests showed a kid seated in its booster could be inward grave danger in such a crash.”
To be clear, so, at that place are 2 major problems associated amongst the marketing of the Big Kid booster place. First, the society marketed the seat for kids weighing less than twoscore pounds when enquiry suggested that the place was not safe for children of such weight. Second, the fellowship marketed the booster place equally beingness side-touch on tested even though crash tests performed by Evenflo suggested that the booster place was non, inwards fact, safety for a side-affect collision. Side-affect crashes drive or so xv% of kid fatalities in machine accidents. Therefore, if y'all currently own a Big Kid Evenflo booster, make not role it unless your child meets the right weight and meridian requirements.
Safety Tips: Child Car Seats too Injury Prevention
The next information comes from HealthyChildren.org together with is designed to aid parents in addition to guardians select the correct rubber seat for a child passenger:
- Infants in addition to toddlers should ride in nurture-facing seats. Rear-facing motorcar seats come up in 3 varieties (rear-facing-only, convertible, as well as iii-inwards-one);
- Rear-facing-only seats should live used for infants weighing upwards to 22 or 35 pounds, depending upon the manufacturer’s instructions;
- Convertible seats should live used as raise-facing until the child reaches the weight together with historic period requirements for forrad-facing;
- Toddlers too preschoolers weighing between twoscore together with xc pounds should live in frontwards-facing machine seats;
- School-aged children should ride inward a booster place after they take outgrown the weight limits of a forwards-facing car place merely are nevertheless under 4 feet nine inches; and
- Booster seats come up in ii varieties: high-back in addition to backless.
If your child sustained injuries spell using an Evenflo booster seat, you lot should talk over your options alongside a product liability lawyer.
