BLOG: Car Booster Seat Safety Tests, 31 Best Bets
By Jim Donovan: A good fit is easier than ever to find when shopping for a booster seat, new ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show.
A record 31 seats have been designated BEST BETS by the Institute, meaning they correctly position a vehicle safety belt on a typical 4 to 8 year-old in almost any car, minivan, or SUV. Prices for these top-rated seats range from less than $15 to several hundred dollars.
In addition to the 31 BEST BETS, another 5 seats are GOOD BETS, meaning they provide acceptable belt fit in most vehicles. Six boosters are not recommended because they don't provide proper belt fit, and consumers are advised to avoid them.
Booster seats are for children who have outgrown forward-facing child restraints. A booster should elevate a child and route the lap and shoulder belts, which are designed for adults, in the correct position to restrain a child during a crash. Some boosters do this better than others. The problem is that consumers can't tell a good booster from a bad one just by comparing features or prices.
Engineers evaluated 62 booster models in the latest round. Twenty-one of them show up twice in the lists. These are dual-use seats, which can work as highback or backless boosters. In the ratings, each dual-use model is considered to be 2 separate boosters for a total of 83 seats evaluated, 11 more than last year.
The biggest group of boosters falls into a middle category, designated "check fit." These 41 seats may provide good fit for some children in some vehicles, but not as many as GOOD BETS or BEST BETS. Parents are advised to make sure the lap belt lies flat across a child's upper thighs and the shoulder belt crosses snugly over the middle of the shoulder. If not, a different seat is needed.
The focus of the Institute's ratings is belt fit, not crash performance, and no crash tests are conducted as part of the evaluation. To assess belt fit, engineers use a test dummy representing an average-size 6 year-old. They measure how lap and shoulder belts fit the dummy in each booster under 4 conditions representing the range of belt configurations in real-world vehicles.
2011 IIHS BOOSTER EVALUATION RESULTS
BEST BETS
Britax Frontier 85
Britax Frontier 85 SICT
Britax Parkway SGL (highback mode)
BubbleBum
Chicco KeyFit Strada (highback mode)
Clek Oobr (highback mode)
Cosco Pronto (highback mode)
Cybex Solution X-Fix
Diono/Sunshine Kids Monterey (highback mode)
Eddie Bauer Auto Booster (highback mode)
Evenflo Big Kid Amp
Evenflo Big Kid Sport (backless mode)
Evenflo Maestro
Evenflo Symphony 65 e3
Ferrari Dreamway SP (highback mode)
Graco Argos 70 (highback mode)
Graco TurboBooster – Baldwin (highback mode)
Graco TurboBooster Elite (highback mode)
Harmony Cruz Youth Booster/Harmony Carpooler
Harmony Dreamtime (backless mode)
Harmony Dreamtime (highback mode)
Harmony Olympian/Secure Comfort Deluxe
Harmony Youth Booster Seat
Kids Embrace Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Maxi-Cosi Rodi XR (highback mode)
Recaro ProBOOSTER
Recaro ProSPORT
Recaro Vivo
Safety 1st Boost Air Protect (highback mode)
Safety 1st S1 Rümi Air
The First Years B570 Pathway
GOOD BETS
Britax Parkway SG (highback mode)
Combi Kobuk Air Thru (backless mode)
Combi Kobuk Air Thru (highback mode)
Evenflo Symphony 65
Maxi-Cosi Rodi (highback mode)
NOT RECOMMENDED
Evenflo Chase
Evenflo Express
Evenflo Generations 65
Evenflo Sightseer
Safety 1st All-in-One
Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite
