Baloise crash test highlights dangers of incorrect child restraint

Baloise Holding AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous Baloise crash test highlights dangers of incorrect child restraint 24.05.2024 / 07:00 CET/CEST Basel, 24 May 2024. Awareness around the subject of child restraint in cars has improved enormously over recent decades. But although the safety standards themselves are now very high, there is still too little being done to educate the public. This means that consumers rarely have enough knowledge or clarity to properly navigate the dizzying array of products on offer. Baloise joined forces with Dynamic Test Center AG (DTC AG), the city of Basel’s traffic police and the retailer baby-walz to carry out a crash test featuring various methods of restraint.

Every day, emergency workers attend accidents in which children have been incorrectly restrained. The consequences for the little ones can often be fatal. So, what do parents, grandparents, or even taxi drivers have to do when travelling with a child? As it turns out, the answers are not that simple and the relevant knowledge is not easily accessible.

“Today, we are looking to recreate a car accident with a scenario that is quite conceivable in hectic everyday family life. Our aim is to highlight the dangers of insufficient child restraint and to explain, as clearly as possible, the safest way for people to travel with children,” says Daniel Junker, Head Vehicle Expert at Baloise.

The first collision was an eye-opener: One parent was in the driver’s seat, while the other had an unsecured baby on their lap in the passenger seat. Sitting in the middle of the rear bench was a six-year-old restrained only by a waist belt. To their left was a three-year old, correctly secured in a backwards-facing infant safety seat. The accident was recreated using dummies.

Immediately after the crash test, Fabian Aschwanden from DTC AG commented on the consequences of the accident: “This was undoubtedly a very violent collision, in which severe injuries could be expected if restraint systems are not used correctly.”

The analysis of the accident starts in the front, with the driver, who was correctly restrained and therefore optimally protected from the impact. The secondary restraint systems, such as the airbags and seat-belt pre-tensioners, were triggered and this clearly helped to reduce his injuries.