Consumer Reports Retracts Report on Infant Car Seats
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Consumer Reports yesterday retracted a negative report on infant car seats that left many parents worried about their babies’ safety — an embarrassing disclosure for the venerable magazine.
Consumer Reports said it was withdrawing the report, issued January 4, because some of its test crashes were conducted at speeds higher than it had claimed.
The original report said most of the seats tested “failed disastrously” in crashes at speeds as low as 35 mph. In one test, it said, a dummy child was hurled 30 feet.
But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said some of the crash tests were conducted under conditions that would represent being struck at more than 70 mph.
“Consumer Reports was right to withdraw its infant car seat test report and I appreciate that they have taken this corrective action,” a NHTSA administrator, Nicole Nason, said. “I was troubled by the report because it frightened parents and could have discouraged them from using car seats.”
