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Importance of Recalls
Using a recalled child safety seat can reduce the seat's effectiveness in a crash.
It is very important to pay attention to recall notices and for parents to check if their seats are safe to use or if they need to be repaired or replaced. Recalls can be issued for any failure to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213 established and enforced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Some recalls may be reasons related to the crashworthiness of the child restraints, while others may be for deviations from the standards relating to labeling requirements, flammability of the upholstery or padding. Regardless of the reason for the recalls, all should be corrected.
The UNC Highway Safety Research Center maintains a recall list covering child restraints manufactured after January 1981 (when federal standards first required crash testing). This list is formatted in a relatively compact format without much detail, but does serve to indicate if a particular model has been recalled. Use of the Adobe Acrobat pdf document is recommended for printing this list.
Recall Lists
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) publishes a list of seats that have been recalled since 1988. This list is available through the NHTSA Child Passenger Safety page. For additional information, parents can call the NHTSA Auto Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236.
SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. maintains a recall list covering child car seats manufactured after January 1981. One feature of this list is that it contains voluntary customer safety notification campaigns in addition to official recalls.
The Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition Child Passenger Safety Program produces a recall list that also contains recall information about products manufactured since 1981.
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