Automotive Academy

Rear-facing not only turns out to be safer for infants, but for people of all ages. In fact, we would all be safer rear-facing in cars, airplanes, trains and elsewhere. Of course, this would not be acceptable to most adults.  

When seating babies, it is best to remain rear-facing to the weight and height limits of the carseat.  Some convertible carseats have 30 or 35 pound rear-facing limits.  In all cases, infants should be rear-facing until they are both one year and twenty pounds at the very minimum.

Usually a child can be moved to a booster when they are too big for a harnessed carseat, and once they are able to sit properly in a seatbelt.  A child should be in some type of booster seat until around 8 years old, unless they are already 4′ 9″ tall.

Fortunately, adults are somewhat better able to withstand the forces on the head and neck in a severe crash when they are front-facing. Babies have very immature bones and connective tissue, and this is especially the case when they are younger than 1 year or under 20 pounds. For that reason, front-facing babies face a particularly serious risk of spinal cord injury in a frontal crash.

Frontal crashes are more frequent, more severe and usually have less ride-down time than rear-end crashes.  In such a frontal crash, it is easy to see why a rear-facing carseat is a better choice.  The entire shell of the carseat cradles the child’s back, neck and head. Some seats even have foam protection in the shell to cushion the child even more. 

The crash forces are spread throughout the large area of the child’s back and head, reducing the pressure during the crash, and keeping the head from snapping backward with respect to the body.  Unlike this rear-facing carseat, a child’s legs and head are not restrained at all if they are turned front-facing.  In a serious frontal crash with a front-facing carseat, the head and legs of the child are thrown forward like a rag doll, and serious forces are put on the child’s spinal cord. 

In a front-facing carseat, only the harness couples the energy to the child’s body.  The smaller area of the harness means more pressure on the child.  In the egg analogy, the egg is much less likely to break if it is caught using the whole padded area of your hand rather than with just a couple bony fingers.

Similarly, for the uncommon rear-end crash, a front-facing carseat may be safer than a rear-facing model.  Still, rear-end crashes are much less common and much less severe than frontal crashes, and it is for that reason we choose to maximize the protection for a frontal crash instead. 

In addition, rear-facing carseats can also provide an added degree of safety in side-impacts.  Rear-facing seats will usually protect the head from being thrown outside the shell of the carseat much better than a front-facing carseat in a frontal offset or side impact.