Improved Child Safety Seat

描述（由申请人提供）：机动车碰撞是美国儿童死亡的主要原因。儿童安全座椅提供保护，并已被观察到减少死亡和受伤率超过70%。研究发现，只有10%至20%的儿童被正确地安装在正确安装的座椅上。最常见的错误之一是在车辆中安装儿童安全座椅。新的儿童低位锚栓和系绳（LATCH）系统旨在通过提供两个用于连接儿童座椅的低位锚栓，使儿童安全座椅的安装更容易。必须用力拉紧柔性LATCH座椅锚带（大于30 lbs.通常）以实现正确的安装。与LATCH安装相关的最常见错误是下部锚带松动，在30%的安装中观察到这种情况。松弛的座椅锚带增加了碰撞中儿童安全座椅和车辆之间的相对运动，从而降低了座椅控制儿童减速的有效性，并增加了儿童特别是头部对车辆内部、座椅或安全带的冲击。本项目将开发一种廉价的设备，以确保儿童安全座椅锚带适当张紧。 公共卫生相关性：所提出的装置的社会益处在于，如果成功，其将通过减少锚带在张紧下的流行性来廉价且容易地提高所有LATCH系统儿童安全座椅的安全性。该设备的关注人群几乎是所有儿童安全座椅安装者/用户，包括父母、祖父母和儿童保育提供者。仅在美国，拟议设备的可用市场每年就超过400万台。在美国，大约有2000万5岁以下的儿童。S.根据法律，这个年龄段的儿童必须被限制在儿童安全座椅上。所提出的装置在几乎所有这些座椅安装中提供益处。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children in the United States. Child safety seats provide protection and have been observed to reduce death and injury rates by more than 70%. Studies have observed that only 10% to 20% of children are correctly harnessed into correctly installed seats. One of the most common errors involves the installation of the child safety seat in the vehicle. The new Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) system is designed to make installation of child safety seats easier by providing two lower anchors onto which a child seat is attached. A flexible LATCH seat anchor strap must be aggressively tensioned (greater than 30 lbs. typically) to achieve proper installation. The most common error associated with LATCH installations has been observed to be a loose lower anchor strap, which was observed in 30% of installations. Loose seat anchor straps increase the relative movement between the child safety seat and the vehicle in a crash thereby reducing the effectiveness of the seat at controlling the child's deceleration and increasing the impact of the child, in particular of the head, with the vehicle interior, seat, or harness. This project will develop an inexpensive device to ensure that child safety seat anchor straps are properly tensioned. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The societal benefit of the proposed device is that, if successful, it will inexpensively and easily improve the safety of all LATCH system child safety seats by reducing the prevalence of anchor strap under tensioning. The population of interest for this device is virtually all child safety seat installers/users, which includes parents, grandparents, and child care providers. The available market for the proposed device exceeds 4 million units annually in the U.S. alone. There are approximately 20 million children under 5 years of age in the U. S. By law, children in this age group must be restrained in a child safety seat. The proposed device provides benefit in nearly all of these seat installations.