Hammocks hanging from the ceiling, deadly iron buckets and curious reserved spaces at the end of the car were some of the inventions so that children could travel without the need to be in the arms of adults.
Unlike current child restraint systems (CRS), which have different reinforcements and harnesses with up to five attachment points, and are mandatory in Spain until the child exceeds 135 centimeters in height, before it was a different story. .
The first CRS were more sought after as comfort accessories for adult occupants than as essential safety elements for children. That is why it is worth knowing how its evolution was, in which aerospace engineering played a prominent role.
One of the big questions since the automobile was invented was where and how to take children. As Motorpasión tells it, there were several possible solutions, although the first dates back to 1904.
The removable child seat was created by the North American Waltham Mfg and was offered as a "luxury option" of the Orient Motor Buckboard, since it cost almost 6 percent ($25) of the total value of the car ($425).
The curious thing was that it was placed almost at the front of the vehicle, which in the event of a collision represented more of a mortal risk than a protective object.
Far from playing a primary role in safety, the seats were used to keep children in their place, avoiding distracting older passengers and even the driver. The result was evident: increasingly high infant mortality rates from traffic accidents.
Starting in the 1920s, more companies began to worry about the issue, adding new but not as effective inventions such as hammock-type seats, iron folding chairs and nets hanging from the ceiling to those from brands such as Lull-A-Baby or Gordon Motors. defined as "the safest and most comfortable car bed ever made" or "the safest way to carry children according to doctors."
The most effective evolution was launched in 1930, when "Bunny Bear" launched car seats with hooks to attach to the seat, but safety remained an afterthought. The plus was the fun, since it had a toy dashboard attached with a steering wheel and gear lever.
The arrival of the three-point seat belt in 1959 marked not only a before and after in occupant safety, it was also fundamental in the development of new CRS.
But the advancement of car seats was also marked by brilliant minds outside the automotive industry, such as journalism or aerospace engineering.
In the early 1960s, British journalist Jean Ames designed a child seat with a "Y"-shaped three-point restraint system. She also patented a five-strap harness with a quick-release pin, which she sold to the D.C. company. Morley Engineering under the name “Jeenay”.
In turn, in 1964, Professor Bertil Aldman of Chalmers University (Sweden) was the one who realized that chairs should be placed facing backwards.
This idea arose after watching a television program about the US space race that showed that to better resist the acceleration forces of the rocket during launch, astronauts lay on their backs. Aldman applied this principle to head-on collisions.
In this position a child's neck would not bend forward in relation to his or her body during an accident, and the force would be more evenly distributed across the developing back and spine. Later research showed that this design also offered protection against side impacts.
Although the crash tests (at that time they were not mandatory) indicated that Aldman was right, it took time to convince users, who argued that children suffered from dizziness traveling in the wrong direction.
In the 1970s, the first safety standards for child seats arrived that established by law their characteristics, their ideal position, and that the seats must be anchored with the vehicle's seat belts and have their own restraint systems for the child. child.
Sweden was the pioneer in Europe, while in the US Tennessee became the first state to enact a law on child restraints in cars in 1979.
In the following decades, standards were added for anchoring systems and tether points, ensuring that child seats are safe and correctly installed.
