New Warning Released Over “Killer Car Seats”

Car seats are supposed to keep your children safe, not put them in danger. But according to new tests and studies carried out earlier this week, a certain brand may be doing just that. In a recent study it became documented that fabric car seats were not safe to use. They were branded as ‘killer car seats’ and was removed from markets three years ago. Undeterred by that fact they were still being sold on popular auctioning sites like Ebay despite warnings from Surrey Trading Standards Institute.

What Are The Risks?

Having seen the risks demonstrated in numerous crash tests it was evident that any support to the child was lackluster at best. It’s advised that you do thorough research before buying any car seat for your child to make it clear which and which haven’t passed any regulation tests as required, especially when buying from third party sellers and auctions. When car seat manufacturer Britax carried out crash tests at a speed of 30mph to showcase the effect of impacts with these car seats, the crash test dummy representing a toddler was catapulted through the car’s windscreen as the car seats straps failed to keep the toddler safe and secure.

What Does This Mean For Retailers?

Top retailers online and otherwise have already begun to remove the products from their store and off their websites. Issues like this bring up queries over how the car seat was allowed into manufacturer in the first place having such a dire test run. Are the trading standards that we currently have in place really enough to keep situations like this from happening again? Do people just not care? Ebay is one of the only websites to be vocal on the matter. They’ve offered their apologies and are doing everything in their power to make it right. It’s time other retailers took notice. And it’d be an even better idea for them to all stop trying to cut corners in the world of cheap business.

What Do The Experts Think?

A spokesperson for the very popular site Ebay has been quoted saying this in response to the ‘killer car seats’ making headlines, “The safety of our customers is our number one priority and we work closely with trading standards to keep our marketplace safe. We have removed these items and will continue to monitor any listings.”. After hearing this Lisa Galliers and Which? Car seats expert responded by saying “You can see the shocking outcome of using one of these fabric seats in a crash in the Trading Standards video. We very much doubt that they’d pass our crash tests.”.

Galliers divulged, “The law on child car seats states that only EU-approved child car seats can be used in the UK. These have to have clear orange approval labels on to show they can be sold on the UK market.