Posted on: 11 May, 2015
Author: Jason Kassel, PhD
You are accustomed to checking for expiration dates on your food, but maybe not on your car seats. When purchasing a car seat, though, you have to look for the expiration date to know for how long it is safe. Choosing to ignore this expiration date will put your child at risk. While it may continue to do the intended job after the expiration, it will not provide the same level of quality or safety that a car seat should. For the sake of your child’s safety, you should look into the expiration date and replace the car seat when it is no longer good to use. There are several reasons why car seats expire. A drop in quality, of course, is one of them. Over time, the car seat will wear down and worsen. The quality will not meet the standards of the manufacturer. The expiration date ensures that the manufacturer is not responsible for any problems due to loss in quality. This includes torn fabric, broken pieces, and the inability to use as intended. Since all of this can affect the comfort and safety of the car seat, the manufacturers want to make sure that buyers understand there is only so long that the car seat is good to go. It is not only quality that changes. Safety regulations do evolve over time as vehicles and knowledge continue to evolve. Due to how everything changes, a car seat will not fit the requirements of vehicles that come out after the expiration date. A car seat from 10 years ago that you buy at a garage sale, as an example, is unlikely to fit the safety requirements for car seats in vehicles today. It is not crash tested for current vehicles and it is not safe enough for current road safety standards. Crash testing is a major aspect of safety and it is another reason why car seats have expiration dates. Car seats go through crash testing to ensure their safety. This is a vital piece of providing top quality, safe car seats for consumers. Without crash testing, there is no way to know whether the car seat is safe. When the crash testing stops but cars continue to change, there is no way to know if the car seat is still trusted. There is no current, accurate information that you can use to figure out whether an old car seat is safe for your child. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com Jason Kassel, PhD is the owner/operator of Car Seats and Strollers a website that provides useful information to new parents looking to be informed about these necessary products. Full of articles, the site provides well-researched and up-to-date knowledge on these necessary products. Read this to learn more about car seats and strollers.