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，经观察，如果使用得当，可将死亡和受伤率降低70%以上。研究发现，只有10%到20%的儿童被正确地安置在正确安装的座椅上。最常见的错误之一涉及在车辆中安装儿童安全座椅。儿童安全座椅安装使用车辆安全带或一个独立的较低的锚和系绳为儿童（LATCH）带与座椅出售。LATCH系统的设计是为了使儿童安全座椅的安装更容易，它提供了一个带座椅和两个较低的锚，儿童座椅连接在车辆上。车辆安全带或灵活的LATCH座椅锚带必须积极地拉紧，以实现正确的安装。在LATCH安装过程中，最常见的错误是下锚带松动，30%的安装中都出现过这种情况。在碰撞中，松散的锚带增加了儿童安全座椅与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）与车辆内部、座椅或安全带的碰撞。该项目将开发一种廉价的装置，以确保儿童安全座椅锚带正确安装。

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% when properly used. 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. Child safety seats are installed using the vehicle seat belt or an independent Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH) strap sold with the seat. The LATCH system is designed to make installation of child safety seats easier by providing a strap with the seat and two lower anchors in the vehicle onto which a child seat is attached. The vehicle seat belt or flexible LATCH seat anchor strap must be aggressively tensioned 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 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 installed. 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 5 million units annually in the U.S. alone. There are approximately 30 million children 6 years old and younger 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.