Grammer to Show Child-Booster Seat at Lifesavers 2005
TROY, Mich., March 11 -- Grammer AG-Automotive will feature its patented Integrated Child-Booster Seat (ICBS) at the Lifesavers 2005 conference, March 13-15, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Booster seats are now mandated by law in 28 states and the District of Columbia to properly position youngsters between 40 and 80 pounds within an automobile's factory-installed seat-belt system.
Anton's Law, signed by President Bush in December 2002, requires the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to provide Congress with an evaluation of current testing devices and research into the nature and causes of injury to children involved in motor vehicle crashes.
Anton's Law was named for Anton Skeen, a four-year-old from Walla Walla, Wash., who died in a vehicle rollover accident after sliding out from under a rear-seat safety belt.
While standards still are being developed in the United States to comply with Anton's Law, Grammer's Integrated Child-Booster Seats pass European safety test standards for protecting children who are too big for infant seats and too small to properly fit within a vehicle's seat belt.
At present, car crashes represent the number one killer of children aged four to fourteen, according to Public Citizen, a national, non-profit advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts.
A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study of 6,000 occurrences found that only 21 percent of children aged four to eight ride in a booster seat occasionally, although children who ride in booster seats are 59 percent less likely to be injured in a crash than children restrained by only a safety belt.
"Aftermarket booster seats can pose problems," says Juergen Huertgen, Grammer's vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas. "Since they are taken in and out of vehicles, they are often not installed properly."
Many adults, including grandparents, sometimes find it difficult to install and uninstall booster seats, and consider them an inconvenience, opting to forego their use. Children, who consider them "un-cool," often protest loud enough to convince adults to let them ride without using a child seat.
Grammer offers a child-booster seat integrated into the rear seat of a vehicle that can be deployed from the seat cushion to position a child snugly within the vehicle's factory-installed three-point belt system. The company is the market leader in Europe, where the booster seat is trademarked as KiSi(R) (for KinderSitz or child seat). The seats are available on vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and Seat.
Grammer is in discussions with several U.S. automakers, and one is currently planning to make the integrated booster seat available in the near future.
Grammer AG is a world leader in the development and manufacture of innovative components and systems for automobile interiors. Wherever people use vehicles, Grammer, based in Amberg, Germany, sets the standards for security, comfort and ergonomics. Automotive is the company's largest division and supplies headrests, armrests, center consoles and integrated child-booster seats to vehicle manufacturers and their tier 1 systems suppliers.
The company's second division, Seating Systems, provides driver seats for heavy trucks and off-road vehicles (tractors, construction machinery, fork- lifts) as well as passenger seats for trains and buses. Grammer Seating Systems is active both as a first-time supplier and as a retrofitter.
As a global player, the Grammer Group operates with a strong customer focus that includes location of development and production facilities close to clients and relies on an international network of partners. In fiscal 2003, Grammer Group sales were $992 million; North American sales totaled $145 million. With over 7,500 employees, Grammer and its 20 consolidated companies operate in 13 different countries worldwide.
Additional information is available by e-mail at AutomotiveInfo.Troy@grammer.com .
