Assessing tether anchor labeling and usability in pickup trucks

ABSTRACTObjective: The objective of this study was to investigate vehicle factors associated with child restraint tether use and misuse in pickup trucks and evaluate 4 labeling interventions designed to educate consumers on proper tether use.Methods: Volunteer testing was performed with 24 subjects and 4 different pickup trucks. Each subject performed 8 child restraint installations among the 4 pickups using 2 forward-facing restraints: a Britax Marathon G4.1 and an Evenflo Triumph. Vehicles were selected to represent 4 different implementations of tether anchors among pickups: plastic loop routers (Chevrolet Silverado), webbing routers (Ram), back wall anchors (Nissan Frontier), and webbing routers plus metal anchors (Toyota Tundra). Interventions included a diagram label, Quick Response (QR) Code linked to video instruction, coordinating text label, and contrasting text tag.Results: Subjects used the child restraint tether in 93% of trials. However, tether use was completely correct in only 9% of trials...