Front seat hidden danger kills children in cars
DENVER — There’s a good chance you are driving with a hidden danger and you don’t know it: Driver and passenger seats that break after a minor crash, striking the children sitting in the back seat.
As parents, you’re told the safest place for your child is in a car seat in the back. But what you don’t know about your front seats could earnestly injure or kill them.
The FOX31 Denver Problem Solvers have uncovered one hundred cases in which children across the country have died because of seat back failure.
Liz and Andrew Warner of Littleton lost their 17-month-old daughter, Taylor.
"It was head trauma. The seat hit her in the face and that’s what caused the brain bleed they couldn’t stop,” Liz Warner said.
Taylor was in her car seat when the Warners’ two thousand ten Honda Odyssey was rear ended. The driver’s seat collapsed on influence and struck Taylor in the face. She never regained consciousness.
“That was it. We didn’t get to know her anymore,” Liz Warner said.
After the Warners buried their baby chick, they realized they were not alone. According to the Center for Auto Safety, eight hundred ninety eight children have been killed in rear-end collisions in the past fifteen years, all of them sitting in the back seat.
The Problem Solvers dug up one hundred lawsuits, blaming those deaths on seat back failures.
Crash test movie shows what happens when a front seat violates. The driver or passenger is thrust into the back, often delivering a fatal gargle to the child behind him or her. Seat back failure has also caused hundreds of catastrophic injuries, to the people seated in the front.
“It’s a thicker problem than most people think,” said Jim Gilbert of the Gilbert Law group in Arvada.
Gilbert has won lawsuits against automakers across the country and said seat back failure has happened in almost every make and model.
“There is no testing available to the consumer that permits them to know how safe or unsafe there vehicle is,” Gilbert said.
The Problem Solvers found documented cases of seat back failure in some of the most popular vehicles on the road, including Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, KIA, Plymouth, Pontiac, Mercury, Jeep, Dodge, Saturn, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, Land Rover, Cadillac, BMW and Audi.
“Typically, these seats contain hidden dangers that you only detect when it’s too late,” Gilbert said.
He blames the problem on an archaic federal safety standard used to test seats.
“These safety standards, almost all of them have been in effect since 1971," he said.
The test is plain: A winch leisurely pulls the seat back. If it doesn’t break, it’s good to go. Gilbert demonstrated how a $Five lawn chair lightly passed the test,.
“It’s laughable how poor the safety standards are," he said.
What’s worse, Gilbert claims, the automakers and National Highway Traffic Safety administration have known about the danger for decades. Gilbert said it would cost just a few dollars to fix the problem.
Using a seat that broke in a crash where the driver was paralyzed, Gilbert and his team of engineers reconfigured the design by adding a 2nd stiffener or recliner on the right side.
And when Gilbert put the fresh seat to the test, “We found a significant increase in the strength of that seat. Safe for you, safe for your child in the back," he said.
“NHTSA has considered switches to its seating standards for years … (but) … rear-impact crashes account for harshly three percent of all traffic fatalities; fatal crashes in which seat failure occurs … are even less common. … The agency is required to perform cost-benefit analysis … for any regulatory switch we would propose," the NHSA said in a statement.
“When you do a cost benefit analysis like that and say, well only one hundred people died, that’s still one hundred people," Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette said.
DeGette said the investigation and latest stories about seat back failure have opened her eyes. She said if the NHTSA fails to take activity, Congress will.
“I will make sure that we investigate fully the condition of these cars, the condition of these seats, and that we hold NHTSA and the rest of these government agencies accountable," she said.
It’s the kind of act the Warners have been asking for.
"I’m committed to do doing this because my daughter is not going to die in vain. Because somebody was too cheap to fix a problem," Andrew Warner said.
“Our 4-year-old is just commencing to seize that he has a sister that he never met and he’ll ask, ‘Mommy, when is she coming back down from heaven to play with me?’ Or we go to the cemetery and he’ll say, ‘I think I see her toes dangling from the clouds,’" Liz Warner said.
"It’s just every single day, there’s something else. I don’t want other people to feel this. I don`t want other people to go through this.”
Until automakers begin making stronger front seats or the NHTSA switches the testing standards, experts recommend placing a car seat in the middle, so if the front seat cracks, it doesn’t hit the child. If there are two children in car seats, put the 2nd seat behind the person in the family who weighs the least.
Front seat hidden danger kills children in cars, FOX31 Denver
Front seat hidden danger kills children in cars
DENVER — There’s a good chance you are driving with a hidden danger and you don’t know it: Driver and passenger seats that break after a minor crash, striking the children sitting in the back seat.
As parents, you’re told the safest place for your child is in a car seat in the back. But what you don’t know about your front seats could earnestly injure or kill them.
The FOX31 Denver Problem Solvers have uncovered one hundred cases in which children across the country have died because of seat back failure.
Liz and Andrew Warner of Littleton lost their 17-month-old daughter, Taylor.
"It was head trauma. The seat hit her in the face and that’s what caused the brain bleed they couldn’t stop,” Liz Warner said.
Taylor was in her car seat when the Warners’ two thousand ten Honda Odyssey was rear ended. The driver’s seat collapsed on influence and struck Taylor in the face. She never regained consciousness.
“That was it. We didn’t get to know her anymore,” Liz Warner said.
After the Warners buried their baby lady, they realized they were not alone. According to the Center for Auto Safety, eight hundred ninety eight children have been killed in rear-end collisions in the past fifteen years, all of them sitting in the back seat.
The Problem Solvers dug up one hundred lawsuits, blaming those deaths on seat back failures.
Crash test movie shows what happens when a front seat violates. The driver or passenger is thrust into the back, often delivering a fatal deep-throat to the child behind him or her. Seat back failure has also caused hundreds of catastrophic injuries, to the people seated in the front.
“It’s a fatter problem than most people think,” said Jim Gilbert of the Gilbert Law group in Arvada.
Gilbert has won lawsuits against automakers across the country and said seat back failure has happened in almost every make and model.
“There is no testing available to the consumer that permits them to know how safe or unsafe there vehicle is,” Gilbert said.
The Problem Solvers found documented cases of seat back failure in some of the most popular vehicles on the road, including Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, KIA, Plymouth, Pontiac, Mercury, Jeep, Dodge, Saturn, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen, Land Rover, Cadillac, BMW and Audi.
“Typically, these seats contain hidden dangers that you only detect when it’s too late,” Gilbert said.
He blames the problem on an archaic federal safety standard used to test seats.
“These safety standards, almost all of them have been in effect since 1971," he said.
The test is elementary: A winch leisurely pulls the seat back. If it doesn’t break, it’s good to go. Gilbert demonstrated how a $Five lawn chair lightly passed the test,.
“It’s laughable how poor the safety standards are," he said.
What’s worse, Gilbert claims, the automakers and National Highway Traffic Safety administration have known about the danger for decades. Gilbert said it would cost just a few dollars to fix the problem.
Using a seat that broke in a crash where the driver was paralyzed, Gilbert and his team of engineers reconfigured the design by adding a 2nd stiffener or recliner on the right side.
And when Gilbert put the fresh seat to the test, “We found a significant increase in the strength of that seat. Safe for you, safe for your child in the back," he said.
“NHTSA has considered switches to its seating standards for years … (but) … rear-impact crashes account for toughly three percent of all traffic fatalities; fatal crashes in which seat failure occurs … are even less common. … The agency is required to perform cost-benefit analysis … for any regulatory switch we would propose," the NHSA said in a statement.
“When you do a cost benefit analysis like that and say, well only one hundred people died, that’s still one hundred people," Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette said.
DeGette said the investigation and latest stories about seat back failure have opened her eyes. She said if the NHTSA fails to take activity, Congress will.
“I will make sure that we investigate fully the condition of these cars, the condition of these seats, and that we hold NHTSA and the rest of these government agencies accountable," she said.
It’s the kind of act the Warners have been pleading for.
"I’m committed to do doing this because my daughter is not going to die in vain. Because somebody was too cheap to fix a problem," Andrew Warner said.
“Our 4-year-old is just commencing to grab that he has a sister that he never met and he’ll ask, ‘Mommy, when is she coming back down from heaven to play with me?’ Or we go to the cemetery and he’ll say, ‘I think I see her toes stringing up from the clouds,’" Liz Warner said.
"It’s just every single day, there’s something else. I don’t want other people to feel this. I don`t want other people to go through this.”
Until automakers begin making stronger front seats or the NHTSA switches the testing standards, experts recommend placing a car seat in the middle, so if the front seat violates, it doesn’t hit the child. If there are two children in car seats, put the 2nd seat behind the person in the family who weighs the least.