Toyota Engineers Easier Safe Child Seat Mounts Access

Using an appropriate child seat is crucial to keep your child safe if traveling by car. Toyota as an automaker has more vehicles rated as Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ from the (IIHS), Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, than any other automaker. When you travel with a child the use of an appropriate child seat is one of legal requirements. Children need to use an appropriate child seat until they are 12 years old.

In 2015, IIHS started the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) program that categorize and encourage automakers to design LATCH tools. When you install a child seat and safety belts, LATCH is used for making correct installation easier.

“We began by going through our North American vehicles one by one, identifying the issues and prioritizing the solutions that had the biggest impact and could be implemented quickly,” said Jennifer Pelky, senior engineer at the Toyota Technical Center and a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician. “Some of the biggest challenges we faced were balancing ease-of-use with safety regulation requirements, comfort, and aesthetics.” The dedication of Toyota’s engineers resulted in many of Toyota’s North American vehicles achieving improved ratings.

Toyota seat team focused on the seat itself because of the expected time of the LATCH protocol delivery and the development timing for the Prius. The main aim or ambition of Toyota engineers and designers was finding a way to make the lower anchors like in other vehicles which are rated well, for example Lexus RX. Eventually, they figured out that deeper anchors could be as easy to use as closer anchors if the access was large enough. This activity led to the Prius open-access idea. The result of all of this is that the Toyota Prius earned the best rating possible by IIHS –Good+.

“As a safety engineer and a mother of two young boys, I understand that installing a child safety seat is not always the easiest task,” said Pelky. “I’m proud to have played a role in making that part of parenting a bit easier.”