How Child Car Seats Work

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Dan on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment we're going to talk about the law, the law physics and the importance of child safety seats. Here in California the law says that they have to stay rear facing like this until they reach two milestones, one year of age and 20 pounds. But that's the law and in your state the law can be different so you need to check your state laws, but that's the actual code but the law physics you have to understand in a crash there are a lot of forces generated and those forces have to go somewhere. The safety seat is designed to absorb those forces and it makes it far safer for the child. Rear facing is also 70% safer than forward facing. The American Academy of Pediatrician is now recommending that your child remain rear facing to the limit of the next seat up, not this infant seat, but a convertible seat and in most cases will go anywhere from 30 to 35 pounds rear facing. The reason for that again is that in a crash the most common being forward facing crash, the forces are going to this way, the seat is going to absorb those forces. The child will be pressed into the seat back and the child's head, neck, shoulders, spine and hips will all compress equally into the seats. The seat takes the brunt of the load in a crash. The crash forces just as a quick rule of thumb if you're thinking about what that restraining force needs to be, you would take the weight of what you're trying to restrain. Say a 10 pound child, at 20 miles an hour, you multiply the weight by the speed, that's 200 pounds of restraining force. That's why you can't hold a child in your lap, in a crash a child is not going to remain there because even 10 pounds at 20 miles an hour is 200 pounds of restraining force. So remember use a safety seat, use it the way it was designed to be used and your child is far safer.

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