Where to Put the Restraint

Accident statistics show that children are safer if they are restrained in the rear rather than the front seat. We recommend that child restraints be secured in a rear seat, including an infant riding in a rear-facing infant seat, a child riding in a forward-facing child seat and an older child riding in a booster seat.

If your vehicle has a rear seat that will accommodate a rear-facing child restraint, a label on your sun visor says, “Never put a rear-facing child seat in the front.” This is because the risk to the rear-facing child is so great, if the airbag deploys.

CAUTION:
A child in a rear-facing child restraint can be seriously injured or killed if the right front passenger’s airbag inflates.
This is because the back of the rear-facing child restraint would be very close to the inflating airbag.
Even though the passenger sensing system is designed to turn off the passenger’s frontal airbag if the system detects a rear-facing child restraint, no system is fail-safe, and no one can guarantee that an airbag will not deploy under some unusual circumstance, even though it is turned off. We recommend that rear-facing child restraints be secured in the rear seat, even if the airbag is off.

If you need to secure a forward-facing child restraint in the right front seat, always move the front passenger seat as far back as it will go. It is better to secure the child restraint in a rear seat.

If your vehicle does not have a rear seat that will accommodate a rear-facing child restraint, never put a child in a rear-facing child restraint in the right front passenger seat unless the passenger airbag status indicator shows off and the airbag is off. Here is why:

CAUTION:
A child in a rear-facing child restraint can be seriously injured or killed if the right front passenger’s airbag inflates. This is because the back of the rear-facing child restraint would be very close to the inflating airbag.Be sure the airbag is off before using a rear-facing child restraint in the right front seat position.
Even though the passenger sensing system is designed to turn off the passenger’s frontal airbag if the system detects a rear-facing child restraint, no system is fail-safe, and no one can guarantee that an airbag will not deploy under some unusual circumstance, even though it is turned off. We recommend that rear-facing child restraints be transported in vehicles with a rear seat that will accommodate a rear-facing child restraint, whenever possible.
If you need to secure a forward-facing child restraint in the right front seat, always move the front passenger seat as far back as it will go. It is better to secure the child restraint in a rear seat.

Wherever you install a child restraint, be sure to secure the child restraint properly.

Keep in mind that an unsecured child restraint can move around in a collision or sudden stop and injure people in the vehicle. Be sure to properly secure any child restraint in your vehicle—even when no child is in it.

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