Choose a Child Seat That Fits in the Car

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Have you ever had a problem getting a car seat to properly fit in your vehicle, but no matter how hard you try, it won’t work? Not all car seats fit securely in all vehicles. But how can you know before you buy a seat?

Just in time for summer travel, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced that consumers may have some additional help in making car seats choices come the 2011 model year. as automakers will then be required to recommend specific seats in a variety of price ranges that will fit certain vehicles. A number of car manufacturers in Europe already have a program of this type. Currently only Nissan and Infiniti provide guidance of this type in the US through their Snugkids programs which provide a list of seats that fit their vehicles.

However, there are plusses and minuses to this program. The greatest benefit is that a lot of the work in choosing a car seat will potentially have been done for you by the manufacturer and would take away some of the trial and error of choosing a seat that fits though the details of what constitutes a good ‘fit’ are not yet known.

Negatives to this program include the potential that lists could be influenced by marketing partnerships between seat and car manufacturers and lists may not include all available brands and models We would hope it would be more about proper fit and safety rather than sales and advertising.