An Unknown In the Back Seat (not a political post)

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

An Unknown In the Back Seat

Car Makers Add Third Rows To Ever-Smaller Models, Raising New Safety Concerns
By JONATHAN WELSH
November 15, 2006; Page D1

Responding to car buyers' competing demands for more seats and better fuel efficiency, auto makers are cramming third-row seats into increasingly smaller models. Trouble is, the safety of these back rows is largely untested, and some consumer groups worry that as these seats proliferate, so will the number of related injuries... In typical models, third-row seats offer up to five inches less headroom for passengers than the average headroom available in front seats. In some cases the seats are so tightly fitted that consumer groups wonder if passengers could more easily be injured in collisions that cause the rear of the vehicle to crumple.

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Hard data on the safety of third rows are scant. Most crash-testing focuses on front impacts because they are the most deadly type. Concern about side impacts, also particularly deadly when large SUVs and trucks hit lower-riding cars, also grew following the rise in SUV popularity over the past decade. Rear-end collisions haven't gotten as much attention in part because they are rarely fatal, and their effect on third-row occupants is largely unstudied. That could change as car makers more aggressively market third-row seating capacity and safety groups take a closer look at third-row safety, especially in smaller SUVs.

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One reason third-row seats are more widely available is because higher gasoline prices have pushed consumers toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles and car makers are trying to accommodate even those who have large families, participate in car pools or otherwise require space for more than five passengers. Advances in auto design have also allowed more SUVs and car-based crossover utility vehicles like the BMW X5 and Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo XC90 to more easily accommodate rear seats that fold unobtrusively flat into the floor of the cargo bay so they're out of sight until needed. This makes them attractive to drivers who may use them only on rare occasions and were turned off by older models whose heavy seats had to be removed when cargo required a flat floor.

Safety advocates, especially those that focus on children, such as Safe Ride News, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in Washington and Partners for Child Passenger Safety at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, say third-row seats often lack basic safety features such as built-in anchors to which child safety seats can be attached firmly and easily instead of using a standard safety belt to hold them in place.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116355861170723463.html (subscription)