A recent FairWarning.org article points out that collapsing front seats can pose a serious danger to children in the back seat. While the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) knows about the issue, they say there’s too little data to initiate any sort of mandate from the federal government to fix the problem.

The problem comes when cars are struck from behind. As the car is suddenly pushed forward, the front seats can collapse and fall backwards. If that should happen, children riding in the back seat can be severely injured when they are struck by the front seat headrest, the seat itself, or by the occupant of the front seat. According to the article, some seats have been known to collapse in a 30 mph crash.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) tests seats as part of their crash test regimen for new cars and, in fact, they remove the seats and test them on a sled separately from the car itself. However, the tests concentrate more on how much support the front seat and headrest will provide for its occupant to prevent whiplash and back injuries and not so much on the ability of the seat to remain upright in a higher impact crash.

Parents who are looking for a new car can check the IIHS crash ratings for a particular model and it will show how well the seats performed in rear end crash tests but it’s important to remember that those tests are conducted to simulate a 20 mph crash and that may not indicate how well the seat will perform in a higher speed impact. You can see an example of the seat test here.

For years, NHTSA has advised that because of the dangers posed by airbags to small children, children should be seated in the back seat. According to FairWarning, that advice doesn’t go far enough. They advise that children be placed in the back seat behind an unoccupied front seat or behind the seat with the occupant that weighs less (as in the photo above).

This video shows what can happen in a crash where the front seat collapses and falls back:

For more information, visit: Regulators, Automakers Urged to Warn Parents About Flawed Seats