Car seat safety in smaller cars

[ThreeCarbsNoGrains]

I am not concerned about the overall crash safety of smaller cars (I believe that has been addressed in several different threads already).  I want to know how you all safely install rear facing car sears in your vehicle.

I have a 2014 Toyota Corolla.  The car manual recommends the infant seat be installed on either of the rear side seats (not center, although that’s allowed but for whatever reason the sides are recommended and have seat anchors).  In any of the rear seats, I was advised by the fire department that there needs to be two inches between the back of the infant seat and the back of the front seats.  This is almost impossible even with the infant seat in the middle rear seat..  My husband is 6’3” so it’s definitely uncomfortable for him but uncomfortable for me as well.

We discovered this issue when we installed the seat, prior to baby’s arrival.  Of course this caused me to, reluctantly, research other cars and considering getting a larger vehicle.  Imagine my surprise when I checked specifications and found many larger cars, including Camrys and CR-Vs have LESS backseat room than my Corolla!

We recently switched to a convertible seat (rear facing, or course) and have the same issue.  We won’t be turning the car seat forward facing for a few years and we need a solution.  With COVID and our previous living situation, we weren’t riding in the car very often.  However we recently moved and are driving more and it’s very uncomfortable driving or riding with that 2” space between the car seat and the back of our seats.

What do other people do?  Surely it is not  necessary  to buy an enormous SUV.  What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance!

[Kem]

We have a 2006 Mazda 3 Sedan and a 2002 Honda Accord Coupe.

We have 3 children ages 8.8, 4.8, 0.5 and use the Chicco KeyFit 30 Orion paired with Diono Radian 3R All-In-One.

After tremendous research we decided that the rear facing convertible seat was just fine in the middle with front facing car seats on the 2 sides with a scant 1” clearance. 

Our vehicles size and age has a debatably slight disadvantage when it comes to crash safety versus a 60K SUV.

A convertible infant seat in the rear center has a debatably slight disadvantage when it comes to crash safety versus a 60K SUV.


The only for certain, your kids are going to die otherwise, style safety stats I could find stating that we NEEDED to use side seats and have no less than 2” clearance are - upon deeper digging - financially backed by those who would profit from the sale and financing of a mega tank.

[yachi]

I've never heard of the 2" separation requirement. 
Here's someone's blog post on clearances: https://carseatblog.com/41237/mythbusters-can-rear-facing-car-seats-touch-front-vehicle-seats/. 

I think car seat manufacturers being in charge of making cars safe for children, and car manufacturers getting to wash their hands of the mess they created is enormously stupid.  We've had a van going on 6 years where the two middle seats have never not had a car seat attached to them.  You take a foam-padded hard plastic reinforced seat, and attached it to another foam-padded hard plastic seat attached to the body of the vehicle.

[EricEng]

I've never heard of the 2" separation requirement. 
Here's someone's blog post on clearances: https://carseatblog.com/41237/mythbusters-can-rear-facing-car-seats-touch-front-vehicle-seats/. 

I think car seat manufacturers being in charge of making cars safe for children, and car manufacturers getting to wash their hands of the mess they created is enormously stupid.  We've had a van going on 6 years where the two middle seats have never not had a car seat attached to them.  You take a foam-padded hard plastic reinforced seat, and attached it to another foam-padded hard plastic seat attached to the body of the vehicle.

Never heard that either.  I'm same boat as your husband in height, and always had that problem.  Even in our minivan my seat is within half an inch although I'm mostly comfy.  In our Impreza I can't safely drive with it behind me.

A car that surprised me was the Subaru Crosstrek.  I can put a rearfacing seat in and have 2 inches of space with comfy driving position.  Also the Honda Accord 4 door has surprising amount of space for rear facing care seat.  Lot of mid and large SUVs I could not.

[Blue Skies]

I had never heard the 2" requirement from the seat.  We had them closer than that.  However, we also had the rear-facing child behind the passenger seat.  I never could drive with a rear facing seat behind me.  About half the time only one person was driving with the child, so then foot room for the passenger seat didn't matter.  The rest of the time the passenger just had to deal with little space.  It worked.

[I'm a red panda]

Never mind what the installer says (what certification do they have? Lots of people assume firefighters or police officers have a certification, but not all do)- what does your car manual and your car seat manual say?  Personally- I think that is made up.

There is a facebook group (and blog) called Car Seats for Littles that I think does an excellent job of car seat safety advice.

Plenty of people manage to have kids in small cars, including in accidents. It is perfectly possible to safely install a car seat in them, though not every seat will fit in every car. (The carseat we use with great ease in our Elantra and Escape wouldn't fit rear facing in my parent's Lexus fake SUV thing, if we had that car we'd need a different seat. The Diono we bought first didn't fit in either of our cars with newborn recline, but might fit now.)

In my Elantra, I have my 3.5 year old rear facing still. (We use a Graco Extend2Fit.)
 

[mntnmn117]

Its really hard to draw the line with child seats/marketing/crash data. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/child-safety-car-seats/story?id=8867880  Essentially normal studies compare completely unrestrained children to children in car seats to show big benefits to car seats.

We've always gone with cheaper seats because generally they are smaller. We're trying to pack the kids 3 across and it never would've fit with the high end brands. You could try that to get your 2 inches. Also in that dimension you are talking about, even many SUVs aren't going to improve that and may be worse that a sedan. 

[ThreeCarbsNoGrains]

We have a 2006 Mazda 3 Sedan and a 2002 Honda Accord Coupe.

We have 3 children ages 8.8, 4.8, 0.5 and use the Chicco KeyFit 30 Orion paired with Diono Radian 3R All-In-One.

After tremendous research we decided that the rear facing convertible seat was just fine in the middle with front facing car seats on the 2 sides with a scant 1” clearance. 

Our vehicles size and age has a debatably slight disadvantage when it comes to crash safety versus a 60K SUV.

A convertible infant seat in the rear center has a debatably slight disadvantage when it comes to crash safety versus a 60K SUV.


The only for certain, your kids are going to die otherwise, style safety stats I could find stating that we NEEDED to use side seats and have no less than 2” clearance are - upon deeper digging - financially backed by those who would profit from the sale and financing of a mega tank.

Good to know!  I realize now I probably could have done more research to get a smaller car seat but we have got it now.  It’s an average sized Graco.

[ThreeCarbsNoGrains]

I've never heard of the 2" separation requirement. 
Here's someone's blog post on clearances: https://carseatblog.com/41237/mythbusters-can-rear-facing-car-seats-touch-front-vehicle-seats/. 

I think car seat manufacturers being in charge of making cars safe for children, and car manufacturers getting to wash their hands of the mess they created is enormously stupid.  We've had a van going on 6 years where the two middle seats have never not had a car seat attached to them.  You take a foam-padded hard plastic reinforced seat, and attached it to another foam-padded hard plastic seat attached to the body of the vehicle.

This is a really good point!  And I read that article when Googling yesterday but then I found several other articles that argued the opposite.  *sigh*

[ThreeCarbsNoGrains]

I've never heard of the 2" separation requirement. 
Here's someone's blog post on clearances: https://carseatblog.com/41237/mythbusters-can-rear-facing-car-seats-touch-front-vehicle-seats/. 

I think car seat manufacturers being in charge of making cars safe for children, and car manufacturers getting to wash their hands of the mess they created is enormously stupid.  We've had a van going on 6 years where the two middle seats have never not had a car seat attached to them.  You take a foam-padded hard plastic reinforced seat, and attached it to another foam-padded hard plastic seat attached to the body of the vehicle.

Never heard that either.  I'm same boat as your husband in height, and always had that problem.  Even in our minivan my seat is within half an inch although I'm mostly comfy.  In our Impreza I can't safely drive with it behind me.

A car that surprised me was the Subaru Crosstrek.  I can put a rearfacing seat in and have 2 inches of space with comfy driving position.  Also the Honda Accord 4 door has surprising amount of space for rear facing care seat.  Lot of mid and large SUVs I could not.

This is great to know as we will need to purchase a second car sometime soon and the Subaru Crosstrek is near the top of our list.

[20957]

As I understand it (and I've done a lot of car seat safety reading over the last 10 years) your rear-facing seat can be touching the seat in front but not wedged in or leaning on. That is, they need to move independently and the front seat shouldn't be changing the placement of the seat once it's installed. 2" is way overkill.

Generally the center seat is thought of as the safest seat in the car. Seat belt or latch shouldn't matter as long as you install properly but that is admittedly easier with latch in most cases. The exception is a center seat that is not good for car seats at all because of small size or a hump or something. Oh, and sometimes only side seats have top tether points which will affect where you put a front-facing seat.

Side note, I am amazed at how little some minivan designers have thought about car seat installation issues- of course most buyers don't have 4 in car seats like us but still families are probably their main target audience, you'd think they'd take that into account.

[SimpleCycle]

The CPST we went to said you should be able to pass a hand in between, which seems like a reasonable guideline to ensure you're not wedging the seat in unintentionally.

We have had two rear facing in a 2003 Corolla and a 2016 Fit, but I am the tallest driver at 5'8".  But there are car seats that have a much shorter front to back footprint than others.  The Cosco Scenera NEXT is small front to back, but kids tend to outgrow it by 2 or 3.  We kept our kids rear facing until about 3.5.  We also had pretty good luck with the Graco Extend2Fit in the unextended position - it allows a more upright install than most rear facing car seats once the child has good head and neck support.  It can rear face until 50 lbs if you are into such things.