How To Choose A Car Seat For Traveling By Car?
To travel with a child in the car, a child car seat is a must. And it’s not just the requirements of the traffic rules, but of course the safety of the life and health of your child. Everyone understands this. However, few people think about the nuances of choosing a car seat for traveling with a child by car, and not just to take the child to school, kindergarten or shop.
Agree, there is a huge difference between a 15-minute trip with a child in the city … and a multi-day journey in a car to the sea or to Europe. You are reading a travel blog about traveling on children, which means that we will tell you about choosing a car seat for traveling. We consider this information particularly relevant before the start of the summer holiday season. But first, the basics of choosing any car seat …
Car seat groups
All car seats are divided into several groups by weight, height, and age of the child:
Group 0. Designed for babies weighing up to 10 kg and up to six months. These are not exactly car seats, they are usually removable cradles of strollers with fasteners and seat belts for the baby. They are located in the back seat of the car across its movement. Virtually no protection of these devices does not provide and can be used for quite a short period of time, and therefore does not represent much interest for buyers.
Group 0+. Designed for children weighing up to 13 kg from birth to 1-1.5 years. This is a fairly comfortable chair carrying with a handle, often with fasteners on the stroller. The child in these chairs is reclining and wearing Y-shaped or five-point seat belts. The chair is installed in the car solely against his movement.
Group 1. For children weighing 9-18 kg (age from 9 months to 4 years). These seats can be installed both in the direction of travel and against the movement of the car, equipped with five-point seat belts, lateral support, and head protection, as a rule, they have tilt adjustment from a sitting position reclining.
This is perhaps the most technologically advanced group of car seats. Here you can find such design features as swiveling bases, turning the seat in the direction of the door for a comfortable fit/unloading of the child, stops on the floor of the car for greater stability, adjusting the seat to the tilt angle, etc.
Group 2. For children weighing 15-25 kg (age from 3 to 7 years). Possess lateral support and headrest with head protection. This group, as a rule, is united by producers with 1 and/or 3 groups. In the case of combination with 3 groups, the backrest is adjusted together with the car seat, the headrest is adjustable in height, and the vehicle’s own seat belt is used instead of its own belts (passed through special guides in the chair).
Group 3. For children weighing 22-36 kg. Like the 0 groups, these are not exactly chairs – these are “boosters”, i.e. seats for higher placement of the child so that the standard car seat belt passes correctly without damaging the neck and abdomen of the child in an accident. However, protection in this case, especially with a side impact, will be minimal…
The most popular car seats groups 0+, 0 + / 1, 1, 2/3 and 1/2/3. We, on our own experience of parents of many children and travelers, recommend buying a child only 2 car seats: either 0+ and 1/2/3, or 0 + / 1 and 2/3. So it will turn out most convenient, comfortable, safe and profitable!
Features of the choice of car seat for traveling
When a child is carried in a car only for short trips around the city (kindergarten, school, shop), he does not have time to get tired. In addition, in an urban setting to get into a serious accident is certainly real, but unlikely. Most urban accidents occur at low speeds, or tangentially when rebuilding and parking. Requirements for car seats in such conditions are minimal.
But everything changes dramatically in auto travel. Speed on the highway increases significantly, as well as the risk of serious accidents. A child on a long-term trip may start to get tired and act up … On a journey, you may need to move the chair or remove it from the car for the night in a hotel. There are many nuances.
That is why the most important when choosing a car seat for travel, we consider maximum safety and comfort for the baby, ease of installation/removal and operation for parents.
A car seat for traveling should be easily installed (for example, on ISOFIX anchorages), get a high safety rating in crash tests, have a headrest and side protection, be truly comfortable, with armrests, soft covers, and seatbelt straps, be sure to recline in a reclining position baby could sleep on the road.
You should not choose a car seat for travel, based only on price, beauty, or catchy advertising … Trust time-tested manufacturers, study reviews and crash test results, take a car seat for a test drive from an authorized dealer. By the way, all this is on the site “Avtodeti”.
Safety and crash tests car seats
The world’s largest manufacturers to ensure maximum safety of the child use such modern technologies as ISOFIX or Latch fasteners, anchors, floor rests on the car, provide decent lateral support and head protection and, of course, conduct crash tests of their seats for safety on their own, and in the largest independent organizations, such as ADAC, EuroNCAP or IIHS …
Professional Tips
This is what Sergey Kerzhentsev, a specialist from the Avtodeti Company in the field of child safety, advises:
“Before choosing a car seat, you need to understand what it will be used for – for short-term city trips or long journeys by car. Be sure to consider the weight of the child when choosing a group of a chair and follow these requirements when using it. Properly and only in accordance with the instructions, install the car seat in the car Find out if there are ISOFIX attachments and anchorages in your cars. or you can take a car seat for a small test drive in order to make a final decision. Look for reviews of the seat on the Internet and crash test results, for example, ADAC. Buy a car seat only in the store, which is the official dealer of the manufacturer,
Post Comment