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Rear facing car seats for five year olds. Are they really better?

July 28, 2012 By 13 Comments

 

 

It recently came to my attention that there is a campaign to educate British parents about the benefits of using rear facing car seats.

Second hand car dealers motors.co.uk have joined ranks with RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) and BeSafe who all agree that rear facing car seats should be used for as long as possible, preferably up to the age of four years old at least.

The website states several reasons why rear facing car seats are safer for your child and it also contains videos and infographics to provide guides and information on the benefits.

I have to say that I am not convinced that rear facing car seats are better or safer.  Whilst there was mention on the site of it being widely accepted that rear facing seats were safer the comparisons were made against Nordic countries alone.  I would have liked to have had a general road safety comparison figure of accidents of each country in total.  Call me cynical but the better figures might just be down to the Nordic countries having safer drivers.

I also cannot see how any of my children at four or five years of age would have been comfortable on a relatively long drive with their legs up against the rear of a seat.  Thinking to our recent trip to Devon a couple of months back where it took the best part of ten hours to get home, I can imagine they would have been complaining desperately of discomfort.  Despite the website’s video expert trying to reassure parents that children are made differently and claims that children will sit cross legged I am definitely not convinced.  My children fidget and stretch and move their legs about at the best of times.  Expecting five year olds to sit with no option of stretching their legs out in front of them if they need to seems unreasonable.

All car seats are stringently tested.  I think I’d need more evidence at the moment before being fully convinced to switch to a rear facing car seat for older children and I think I’d need to be able to hire a few to test and trial with the children before committing to purchasing one.

What do you think about rear facing car seats for children up to five years old?

More information can be found at http://rearfacing.motors.co.uk/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

  1. Louise says:
    July 28, 2012 at 9:21 am

    I don’t have a 5 year old rear facing, but my large almost 3 year old is and has never complained. The seat we chose has 2positions, 1sslightly reclined and against the back of the seat, and another more upright and away from the back of the seat. She is stilll reclines, so there is more space to come yet. I went to the essex in car safety centre and they tried several seats in my car to find a good fit. What worrys me is people who seem to think their child is advanced if they turn the carseat forward early. I know many people who put their childrenn forward as soon as thy sit up, when they could stay in the baby seat far longer. All mine have fitted their rearfacing baby seats weight and height wise beyond 1yr and they were not small babies. I also know people who rush to get their children into booster seats way before 4.

  2. abba12 says:
    July 28, 2012 at 10:42 am

    I’m gonna have to look at some of these videos, I’ve never heard of children so old being rear facing. In Australia, babies are rearward facing until about 6 months, with some states moving to 12 months or a certain weight, whichever comes first. I guess the seats must be set up differently, and I can’t say I’ve even seen seats with the option for rearward facing that late. At 4 years old a child is looking at moving from forward facing to booster seat, not rearward to forward!

    Australia is constantly researching and studying car seats and making their rules stricter, seats considered safe 5 or 10 years ago are often considered illegal now. And yet the idea of rearward toddlers is unheard of here, so it can’t be that much safer.

  3. Patty says:
    July 28, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    In the States, (our vehicles) if you tried to put an older child rear facing, they’d break their legs in an accident for sure.

    • christy says:
      July 29, 2012 at 6:46 pm

      Better a leg then a neck and actually that has never happened (broken legs I mean.)

    • Wendy Thomas says:
      July 29, 2012 at 7:22 pm

      Actually, they wouldn’t. They’re more likely to break their legs impacting the front seats forward facing. Rear facing their legs will come to their chests. For kids (and most adults), that’s barely a moderate stretch.

      As for Australia, it IS better to rear face longer, but your seats are not set up for it. Sweden rear faces to four years and has since the 1960s, and their child deaths per year on the road are far far less than anyone else’s. What this article is asking is is it because of the drivers, or because of the carseats? Given that they have data from before this in the 1960s, and after, I’m pretty sure the carseats played a huge part. Same in the US. With more carseat usage, and better usage, kids are dying less. We’re not driving better (definitely not), we’re just protecting kids better. But seats in Australia go to 13kg rear facing at best. So you’re right in that your seats cannot accommodate bigger kids. In the US we have seats that go to 45 pounds rear facing (20.4kg). Sweden has seats that go to 55 pounds (25kg). They’re much taller than Australian rear facing seats, we don’t have the annoying overhead tether that you guys do. Swedish seats have a foot prop so the seat sits further away from the backseat, giving more leg room. US seats don’t (and can’t, the test sled doesn’t have a floor, so no foot prop can be used), but with a deeper seating area there is more leg room.

      Rear facing at five: http://imgur.com/6qcmd

      Rear facing links: http://carseatblog.com/5168/why-rear-facing-is-better-your-rf-link-guide/

      Shows what happens with the legs and neck rear and forward facing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U

  4. Anon says:
    July 29, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    I currently have a rear facing 4 1/2 year who not only has never complained about his seat but after a long day actually exclaims he can’t wait to get cozy in his seat and just chill, lol! And believe me, he’s certainly a vocal little guy when he is NOT happy about something. Most children actually prefer to sit in SOME position with their legs bent or folded… As do most adults. I’m currently sitting in a recliner with both legs criss crossed as I type this. As for the increased safety there is excellent information regarding not only the physics of vehicle crashes but also child structural development here:
    http://www.kyledavidmiller.org/car-seat-safety-rear-facing-is-safest.html

    Extended rear facing well into 4 and 5 years old is not only a safer option but definitely a feasible one.

  5. Jeni says:
    July 29, 2012 at 7:32 pm

    It would be safer if everyone in the vehicle traveled in a rear facing direction due to the fact that the entire head, neck, and spine would be supported by the back of the seat in a wreck. But that’s simply not possible to do, so we make ways to keep our young children as safe as possible.

    The cervical (neck) vertebrae are actually 3 separate bones in an infant/toddler rather than the solid ring of a bone we think of for adults. The odds of a severe neck injury are increased significantly for young children because they simply do not have the bone and muscle support that adults have. The vertebrae begin to fuse around age 3 and are completely ossified by approximately age 6.

    The Nordic seats designed for older children are shaped differently to allow for leg room. But even without leg room, all the objects in a vehicle are thrown forward during a collision so a rearward child (including his/her legs) would move away from the back of the seat. Children are actually more likely to break their legs when facing forward because their legs are slammed into the seat ahead of them.

    Physics dictate that is it simply safer to keep a child rearward in a seat that can support his/her height and weight until a minimum of age 4. After that, we need to do the best we can to keep our children as safe as possible within the limits of the seats that are available to us.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U

  6. Vickie says:
    July 29, 2012 at 9:50 pm

    I wouldn’t keep my 5 year old in a rear facing seat. My kids like to stretch their legs, fold them up, work kinks out. I have 2 that get severe car sick….riding backwards makes it worse and miserable for us all. Will we need rear facing seats for the Kindergarteners on the school bus too?

    Rear facing seats is no sure fire way to stop a neck from getting broken. IMO, rear facing isn’t any more safer than riding forward is dangerous.

    We all do what we need to do to keep our kids safe but I don’t see how keeping them rear facing til age 5 is of any benefit for their safety.

    But that’s me LOL We will each have our own thoughts on these types of subjects and it’s ok :)

  7. Yvonne says:
    August 2, 2012 at 7:30 am

    If you watch crash tests videos of children forward-facing versus rear-facing you will see the difference. It is huge, and scary. You can find crash test videos online.

  8. Jennifer Fox says:
    August 19, 2012 at 12:45 am

    The science behind why rear facing car seats are safer cannot be argued with. It’s nothing to do with individual brands or makes or models, (so the argument that all seats are as safe as each other when installed correctly is wrong), it is literally down to the physics of a seat that is facing away from the point of collision.

    Thanks to stringent records kept of vehicle crashes, we know the % of crashes that happen at the front of a vehicle, to the side of a vehicle, or to the back of a vehicle. Anybody can look this up for themselves, but the numbers roughly (ROUGHLY) work out to be:
    Frontal impact: 70%
    Side impact: 15%
    Rear impact: 15%

    So most crashes happen at the front of the car, and incidentally are at a higher speed. It is therefore these crashes you want to protect against most.
    A frontal collision will cause all front facing passengers to be propelled forward. Front passengers have the benefit of air bags which are there to increase “ride down time” (google it for explaination), and all passengers have seatbelts that give before going into lock (also helps with ride down and then secures them).
    Children in car seats have neither of these things. They have chest restraints which prevent their bodies from leaving the seats, but their limb sockets and spinal cord are subjected to the full force of coming to a standstill.

    In the UK we do not test the forces emitted on the necks of children in car seats as standard. Therefore reputable review sites such as Which? never give accurate information on rear facing versus forward facing, because the way in which rear facing excels is not even considered. In Scandinavia these tests *are* performed.

    In crash tests it was found that the force applied to a child in a forward facing car seat in a frontal collision (at whatever speed they crash at as standard) was 300kg-320kg. The exact same test perform but on a child in a rear facing cat seat results in forces of 50kg. That is how rear facing seats can be called 5-6 times safer than front facing car seats in nearly three quarters of all car crashes.
    The spinal column was also measured to stretch up to 2 inches in such a crash, but an average toddler’s neck can only really stretch to around 1 half an inch before there is risk of snapping.

    The short version is, you’re more likely to have a frontal crash, and your child is more likely to survive without severe injury or altogether if they are rear facing. 5-6 times more likely should the unthinkable happen. It doesn’t matter what brand of car seat it is or how many reviews or stars it’s got. If it faces BACKWARDS, it’s definitely safer.

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