As an expectant father, already nervous about the impending arrival of our first child, I literally lost count of how many times I heard the doomsday statistic about misinstalled baby car seats. ‘Careless parents’ always seemed to be the sentiment, ‘Don’t be one of them.’ Even the American Academy of Pediatrics seems to agree, stating, “One of the most important jobs you have as a parent is keeping your child safe when riding in a vehicle.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officially puts the number of misinstalled car seats at 3 out of 4, though other estimates run as high as 9 out of 10. These figures are unconscionable, especially considering that car accident injuries are the single leading cause of death among children in the U.S., according to the Center for Disease Control.
Countless diaper changes and car seat heaves later, I’m more convinced than ever that these untold numbers of misinstalled car seats are not due to careless parents, but bad design. Baby car seats are perpetually confusing to install, unnecessarily difficult to strap a baby into, and incredibly cumbersome to carry. Moreover, it’s difficult to think of another example of a product in which the manufacturer’s design failures are blamed almost universally on the users.
In our parenting classes, the teacher put the onus squarely on parents. We were told that there are tons of YouTube videos on car seat installation, and there are. Outside of internet how-to’s uploaded by new parents like ourselves, the teacher recommended one of the installation workshops hosted by big box stores like Kids ‘R Us in their parking lots some Saturday morning. But her most fervent advice was to visit our local fire station to have the installation checked.
When I told my firefighter friend this, he just about spit out his beer. A father of two, he immediately thought of the vast majority of his single, twenty-something comrades—who are no doubt experts at an array of safety matters, but absolutely not at car seat installation. To be clear, the city’s grueling fire academy doesn’t teach a single thing about car seat installation. He wasn’t even sure what would happen if someone knocked on the firehouse door asking for a car seat check, and didn’t know of that ever happening.
The widespread use of car seats is, in fact, a relatively new phenomenon. Special seats for children date back to the invention of the automobile, primarily so that kids could more comfortably see out car windows. It wasn’t until the early-1960s that the first seat specifically focused on child safety was invented and brought to market; Leonard Rivkin, a Denver-based children’s furniture company owner, created the metal-framed Strolee National Safety Car Seat for Children. Advocacy for car seats picked up steam in the 1970s, though still only half of children were believed to use them by the mid-80s.
In 1990, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) began recommending that standard anchors, tethers, and hooks be present in passenger vehicles in order to secure baby car seats. More than a decade later, in 2002, a U.S. federal law finally went into effect, requiring automobile manufacturers to guarantee all cars have a version of the ISO standard, called LATCH, short for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children. However, misinstallations persist.
Securing baby car seats to the car has proven to be a complicated endeavor, but so, too, have the harnesses and belt systems used within the baby seats themselves. This year alone, Graco, a leading manufacturer, recalled upwards of 5 million baby car seats due to faulty and stubborn buckles that are known to get stuck, potentially endangering small passengers should they need to be removed quickly in an emergency. Imagine if an adult seat belt was similarly difficult to disengage.
Watch any parent carry even a feather-light newborn in their baby seat from home to car, and you’ll note the second biggest design flaw: car seats are remarkably unwieldy to transport, especially as a child quickly doubles and triples in size and weight. The mere act of lifting a car seat off the ground can be likened to the dead lift exercise of the World’s Strongest Man Competition. Once in-hand, they’re entirely awkward to walk with. Though some manufacturers have made slight design adjustments, like rotating the direction of the carrying handle by 90 degrees, it’s time they do more.
And it’s not just functional design that’s lacking. Car seats are a visual abomination. There are non-removable safety stickers visible every few inches on the seat and base. Bold colored warning labels are even adhered to the cushioning around the baby’s head, as if to remind parents that they’re putting their child in mortal danger every time they drive. Aesthetics aside, the type is on these labels is indecipherably small, so they’re clearly not making anyone any safer.
To be sure, baby car seat manufacturers have a complex task. They have to create a device to work not just with many shapes and sizes of cars, but also many shapes and sizes of babies and caretakers. The seats are also increasingly expected to connect seamlessly with strollers and other devices. And regulatory and liability concerns abound.
With child safety at stake, this is nothing short of a design epidemic. But it’s also an enormous business opportunity for designers and entrepreneurs. While the total number of car seats sold annually is difficult to pin down, the millions of recalled Graco seats offer some indication of a multi-billion dollar market.
So how might a better-designed car seat look and function? It could start with bases that only accept the upper seat when they’re correctly installed, like a Cuisinart mixer that won’t turn on unless clicked into proper alignment. The seat itself could take some cues from the crowded baby carrier market, which puts a premium on good ergonomics for caregivers. Rather than requiring parents to tote around an awkwardly shaped, large plastic shell, imagine if there were a more flexible, nimble inner layer. Given that all car seats have seat belts, higher-quality buckles would be an easy fix, as would a simpler system of adjustable straps. Finally, my ideal car seat would come with no labels whatsoever, but if they prove legally necessary, manufacturers could at least make them discreet and orderly, or even hide them as they do with bed mattress tags.
Blessed with a healthy and fast-growing baby, we’re already eyeing our next car seat, of the more upright, forward-facing variety. A recent trip to our local baby supply store offered up models with cup holders and lots of other bells and whistles. And adjacent to the display was a six-foot tall, colorful banner, recounting those same glaring statistics about misinstallation. It’s high time that carmakers, baby seat manufacturers, and safety regulators put their heads together to fix this problem. There are no doubt countless parents, like my wife and I, who would happily offer up our experience to strengthen the design process and then shell out our hard-earned money for a better solution.
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