Child Seats Hard to Install in Most Vehicles

A recently released study shows that only a fifth of the 2010 and 2011 model vehicles were build so parents can easily install child safety seats.

Last year in the U.S. seven models, Toyota Sienna XLE minivan included among them, did not have any of the three characteristics that make installation of child restraints easy. The researchers from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute evaluated 98 cars, from which only 21 met all three criteria outlined by them, including the Chevrolet Equinox crossover, Chrysler’s Town & Country minivan and the Ford Escape XLT.

The U.S. safety regulators stated that all vehicles beginning from 2003 model year should be built with standard set of features that allow parents to install a safety seat, a system called lower anchors and tethers for children, or LATCH. According to LATCH cars must have anchors in the rear seats that can be attached to the top and bottom of child safety seats.

“Sometimes parents blame themselves when they struggle with LATCH, but often times the problem lies with the vehicle, not the user,” said Anne McCartt, one of the report’s authors and senior vice president of research for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.