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We are seeking to test and adapt successful devices for child crash protection from outside the United States not now used here. Test results and possible problems are presented for a transverse infant bed, a toddler backward facing seat, and an older child booster seat with back and head supports (from Kilppan, Sweden), and the Australian “Sit-Safe” design, an inexpensive belt to go between the shoulder strap and the lap belt to insure that the shoulder belt does not touch the child's neck. We have also tested an inflated pad alternative to the upper back of the front seat bulge passive restraint of DeRampe (France) to reduce knee contact - leg straightening - body vaulting which contributes to ejection of unrestrained people from the back seat. And we are testing plastic coated side glass to explore extending the anti-lacerative glazing advance of Saint-Gobain Vitrage (France) to the even more significant potential reduction of ejection.

The injury reducing effectiveness of child safety seats in frontal crashes was evaluated, based on 36 frontal or oblique sled tests run with two or more GM three-year-old dummies in the simulated passenger compartment of a car. Unrestrained, correctly restrained and incorrectly restrained dummies were tested at the range of speeds where most nonminor injuries occur (15-35 mph). Accident data from NHTSA files were used to calibrate a relationship between the front-seat unrestrained dummies' HIC and unrestrained children's risk of serious head injuries; also between torso g's and the risk of serious torso injuries. These relationships were used to predict injury risk for the restrained children as a function of crash speed and to compare it to the risk for unrestrained children. The sled test analysis predicted that the 1984 mix of correctly and incorrectly used safety seats reduced serious injury risk by 40 percent relative to the unrestrained child, in frontal crashes.