Articles labeled: national highway traffic safety administration

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has come up with a new 5-star ratings system to help parents make a more informed choice as to which car seat is easiest for parents to properly install. In other words, a 1-star car seat will require a degree from MIT, while the 5-star is perfect for those with the hand coordination of a lobster, like us. Hopefully this will have some influence on car seat manufacturers to make them all easy to put in to stay competitive, as we don’t see too many parents having a hard time answering the question, “Hmmm, should I get the 2-star car seat that will take an hour to get in and out of the minivan, or the 5-star one that take 30 seconds?”

Regulators hope to address confusion among parents over the wide variety of seats and installation methods.

Using a five-star rating system, the new approach will judge safety seats by the ease with which the seats can be used by parents.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says seven in 10 child safety seats are either the wrong size of misused. That reduces the seats’ ability to protect kids in a crash.

You can view the new guidelines at the NHTSA website.