Safety Agency Pressures Graco to Recall More Child Seats
By: Christopher Jensen (NY Times) May 2014
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is increasing pressure on Graco Children’s Products to recall about 1.8 million car safety seats the agency deems dangerous, and has ordered a series of tests. The goal, the agency said, is to see how long a malfunctioning buckle would delay freeing an infant during an emergency.
In February and March, Graco agreed to recall about 4.2 million forward-facing child seats with the same faulty buckle. The recalls followed a safety agency investigation prompted by complaints from parents, some of whom told the agency that they had to cut straps to free their children from the seats.
Graco said the rear-facing seats did not need to be recalled because it did not matter if the buckles were balky. Graco said that even if a buckle was difficult to release, the portion of the seat holding the child could be detached from its base and quickly removed from the vehicle. The base is anchored to the vehicle’s seat.
But the agency says it “believes that the hazards and risks involved in the delay of extricating a child from a rear-facing infant car seat in any emergency situation are significantly increased and rise to the level of unreasonable risk when the harness buckle is difficult to open or is stuck in a latched condition,” according to a new document posted on its website.
Consequently, the agency has asked its research center to conduct tests to determine how long it would take to remove such a seat with and without a properly functioning buckle. The agency said it wanted the tests completed quickly.
The models subject to testing are the Snugride, Snugride 30, Snugride 32, Infant Safe Seat-Step 1, Snugride 35, Tuetonia 35 and Snugride Click Connect 40. Graco is a division of Newell Rubbermaid, which is based in Atlanta.
Graco is working with the safety agency and industry experts “in order to come to a final agreement on a solution that is in the best interest of our consumers,” Ashley Mowrey, a Graco spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
The agency’s file on Graco includes a wrongful-death suit in California involving a child who died of burns in 2011 after a crash in which her mother could not easily free the child from the car seat. The case was settled out of court, and Graco said the buckle was not at fault, although the details of the case were confidential.
Graco said the problem with the buckle was that children spill food and drinks on it, causing it to stick. The agency said that such problems should have been taken into account during the design of the buckle. The buckles were made by AmSafe Commercial Products of Elkhart, Ind.
If the manufacturers refuse to recall the additional seats, the agency could take the companies to court.
