The rear seats of cars are not always the safest place in the event of an accident, according to some new studies: in the absence of some additional safety devices that not all cars fit on the rear seats, the front ones can be better in terms of risks. in the event of an accident. But the safety of a seat is not the same for all people: the recommendation applies to older people, while for children under 13 the rear seats continue to be safer.
Historically, the rear seats have been considered the safest of cars due to the greater distance from the point of impact in the event of a frontal accident, which allows much of the kinetic energy developed to dissipate, reducing the consequences of the impact. As explained by the New York Times, however, some new studies have convinced the experts that this distance is not enough to compensate for the possible absence of pretensioners and load limiters in the seat belts, two devices that respectively serve to tighten them more when they sense an impending accident, detecting a sudden deceleration, and loosen them if they detect that the seat occupant is pressing them so hard that they can hurt themselves.
Introduced in the 1990s, these devices are now standard on many cars, although they are not required by law. In the United States, however, most cars only fit them for the front seats, which led researchers cited by the New York Times to conclude that they are the safest of cars. For Europe it doesn't work the same way: although not yet mandatory, pretensioners and load limiters in the rear seats are spreading rapidly. They are now also fitted as standard on the rear of most cars, and not only on the “first range” ones as in the United States.
From the site of the Euro NCAP, the European program for automotive safety, it is possible to check on which models – and from which year of production – the rear pretensioners and load limiters are fitted as standard. Taking the FIAT 500 as an example, it can be seen that they are not fitted to the 2017 model, but are instead present on the 500X. They are standard on the 2017 Citroën C3 and Toyota Yaris of the same year, for example, and in general it is difficult to find a car produced in recent years that does not have them. Things change if you go back a few years: the 2011 Yaris, for example, did not have them, as well as the 2009 Citroën C3. The 2016 Alfa Romeo Giulia has them, while the 2017 Giulietta has the limiter. load but not the pretensioner, on the rear seats.
In short, if the car in question is new, it is very likely that it has both safety devices on the rear seats: which at this point remain the safest in the car for passengers of any age. If the car is older, or if it is one of those – fewer and fewer – that do not mount the standard devices on the rear seats, things change: the safest seats are the front ones, except for children. It is important to clarify that it is not that the rear seats have become less secure: it is the front ones that have become more secure. The belts that do not have pretensioners and load limiters continue to be safe and compliant: only a little less than the most modern ones.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US agency that deals with road safety, it is especially passengers over 55 who have to sit in the front in cars that have load limiters only in the front seats. In fact, seat belts can cause damage to the chest, abdomen or spine in the event of a frontal accident, which can be serious especially for older people with more fragile bones. But the most recent studies suggest that front seats, if they are the only ones to fit pretensioners and load limiters, are safer even for adults under 55.
The previous directions to sit in the back – even in the absence of pretensioners and load limiters – still apply to children under 13, Jingwen Hu, a researcher at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Center, told the New York Times: ” Children are very complicated, and very different from older people, as regards recurring injuries and their mechanisms “.
However, there are also some drawbacks: the load limiters, in fact, can leave too much room for the movement of the passengers' heads. If in the front seats of cars there are airbags that prevent you from hitting the dashboard, there are no front airbags behind them, still too complicated to add to the back of the front seats. This is why the American company Ford has developed a particular type of belt that inflates by acting a bit like an airbag: however, it did not work much from a commercial point of view, because for some it was uncomfortable to use. Ford will therefore begin to offer standard rear seat pretensioners and load limiters in the United States.
