Relatively minor accidents sometimes have tragic consequences. ARCCA was involved in a case where a child returning home with his parents after a hockey game was paralyzed in a minor frontal crash. After the game, the child’s hockey bag was placed in the trunk, and the child was in the back seat wearing his seat belt. A frontal vehicle impact caused the hockey bag to break through the seat and injure the child’s back due to poorly-designed seat back retention latches.
An ARCCA crashworthiness engineer demonstrated that if the retention design had used safety standards comparable to those in Europe, the retention system would have prevented the bag from breaking though the seat. Additionally, an ARCCA biomechanical engineer evaluated the mechanism of injury, determining that the contact of the hockey bag through the seat was causal to the child’s paralysis.
Another of ARCCA’s cargo retention cases was featured on the CBS Early Show. See video below.