Is there any point to booster car seats with anchors?
Our child is ready to switch from a five-point harness child car seat to a car booster seat, and we looked at a couple of models in a store. We saw one model that has clips on it to clip into the anchors that the five-point harness uses.
Is there any point to this? The difference is that a five-point harness replaces the regular seat belts and must be strongly connected to the car's frame. A booster seat just holds the seat belt in a safe position on the child's body. I don't think there's any tension between the car and the booster seat in a crash, so why would it need to be anchored?
Has anyone seen any reliable information on this feature?
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Anchors for booster seats are only for convenience, not for safety.
In actuality, the LATCH system, as mandated in US vehicles from 2002 onward, supports a total combined weight of both child and seat of no more than 65 pounds. I found this information on Consumer Reports.
Depending on the weight of your car seat or booster seat, this may mean the LATCH system only supports children weighing anywhere from 32-50 pounds. In these cases, it's necessarily safer to use the seat belts to secure the seat, rather than the LATCH system.
The reason LATCH was developed was not because it is inherently safer, but because it's inherently easier to secure the seats properly.
Securing seats properly with the seat belt straps is more difficult, so more care must be taken in doing so. However, seat belts do not have the surprisingly low maximum supported weight that LATCH systems do. Seat belts are designed to safely secure adult passengers of various weights. For most five-point harness seats, it's also possible to secure them with the seat belt, instead of the anchors.
Booster seats that only use the seat belt to secure the child, and don't secure the seat, gain no additional safety benefit from the LATCH system. It's there mainly for convenience: the child can get in the seat themselves without it shifting and it doesn't become "free" when not in use. Children in this types of seats are more likely to outgrow or already by over the weight limits of LATCH systems.
As Byran answered, if the booster seat is not in use, it should be anchored with the LATCH system or stored in a safe area, in order to prevent it from becoming a hazard during a car accident.
Answer adapted from another answer of mine.
Imagine what happens in a frontal crash - an unanchored object will continue forwards at the speed it was travelling (say 70mph if we are talking about a UK motorway).
So with the seatbelt holding the child, if the car came to an instant halt, the booster would effectively hit the child at 70mph in the back of the knees. (Yes I know this is a huge simplification, but it shows the principle)
With the booster anchored as well, it will decelerate at the same rate as the child, so this impact will not occur.
Boosters are pretty light, but as kinetic energy is 1/2 x Mass x (Velocity squared) anything you can do to reduce that v-squared really helps.
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