Car Seat Ninja had the privilege of attending the BeSafe Safety Event in Oslo — a gathering of 160 passionate experts, innovators, and advocates working towards safer journeys for every child. The day was packed with inspiring talks, fresh ideas, and thoughtful discussions. Here’s our recap of the key sessions and takeaways.
A Safer Future
Speaker: Magnus Tollefsen, BeSafe
Magnus opened the event by sharing BeSafe’s vision for a safer future. His talk set the tone for the day, focusing on long-term goals and the shared responsibility of the child safety community.
Educating for Safer Travels
Speaker: Silje Kristine Hansen, Trygg Trafikk
Silje highlighted the vital role of education in child passenger safety. From parent outreach to professional training, her session emphasised how informed choices can save lives.
As part of their ongoing mission to drive down the child casualty rate in Norway, they have introduced a child seat finder on the council website to help parents discover the safest options for the age, weight and height of their child and also have posters displayed in childcare settings about car seat use and best practice.
Misuse — 20 Years of Learnings
Speaker: Gerd Müller, Technische Universität Berlin
Gerd shared two decades of research into car seat misuse — what we’ve learned, what continues to challenge us, and where we go from here.
He shared that there two types of misuse; Intentional misuse where the user knows how the product should be used yet makes the conscious decision to use it incorrectly, perhaps to please the child or believes it doesn't matter. Then we have accidental misuse; this is when the user isn't familiar with the product, maybe it's been passed down with no instructions or those instructions haven't been thoroughly understood.
He also noted that their research had revealed that various factors dramatically affect the percentage of misuse, with a higher proportion of poor fits occurring when the weather is bad and during shorter, more regular trips, such as school runs and shopping. More effort was made in favourable weather and for longer planned trips, such as holidays.
Many errors occur when it comes to parents not using the correct child restraint for their child's weight and/or height, with the final group 2/3 having a higher percentage of children being too young or too light, which would indicate that parents aren't adhering to the law or are switching to this stage out of convenience or for financial reasons.
Innovations to Prevent Misuse
Speaker: Clarissa von Kleist, BeSafe
Clarissa introduced innovations BeSafe is developing to make it easier for families to use car seats correctly — reducing the chance of dangerous errors.
One of BeSafe's key objectives is to keep children travelling rear facing for longer, which is why they have always focused their efforts on extended rear facing seats. However, they know there will some parents who wish to forward face their child earlier, despite the advice featured on their website and from retailers such as ourselves at Car Seat Ninja.
With the launch of Beyond in 2024, BeSafe chose to push the parameters of the usage of their 360 seat, by ensuring the minimum height they applied to the seat was more representative of the legal minimum age of 15 months (88cm). They have also added additional features to prevent misuse by only allowing the seat to face forward when the headrest is at a suitable height with a mechanism in place to prevent the user from 'cheating the system', not allowing the seat to rotate forward facing or click onto the base in the forward facing position if the headrest is too low. This innovative idea moves away from the more common method of simply having a lever to switch the seat from one direction to another, which can lead to intentional or accidental misuse as mentioned in Gerd's earlier presentation.
Increasing Misuse — Triggers and Interventions
Speaker: Alice Dona-Mitu, Children Car Safety Foundation Romania
Alice explored why misuse rates are on the rise in some regions, particularly with children over 4, with the most common being the child's discomfort and the higher cost of seats preventing parents being able to use suitable options or not realising there are longer lasting seats available.
European Consumer Testing Program and the Effects on Child Safety
Speaker: Andreas Ratzek, ADAC
The ADAC overall crash score is broken down into 3 main sections with 50% focusing on the safety of the seat, 40% on the ease of use and 10% on erggonomics. The grading is as follows and the lower the score the better the outcome.
They select seats twice a year at random but take into account popularity and innovative features to test whether they hold up in real life conditions.
Andreas gave insights into how consumer testing programs across Europe are shaping safer products and better standards for child restraint systems.
In 2005, the ADAC accident research was founded, which was a collaboration between ADAC technical department and ADAC Air Rescue Service. This partnership allowed them to identify injury patterns across different age groups of children, specifically under 4's and 6-12 year olds. In a report of around 300 patients, head and brain injury attributed to the highest percentage of injuries across both age groups, with abdomen and thorax being notable in the older age category. This information would tell us that a larger proportion of younger children are likely to have been in forward facing seats too early and the older children moving out of suitable child restraints too soon.
Because of this testing programme, many manufacturers have raised the bar in child safety and to date more than 1100 child seats have been tested, with many rated good or average. Since the start of the testing process, child occupancy fatalities in Germany have dramatically decreased because of improved restraint use and simpler installation methods.
Advantages of Levelling Technology
Speaker: Okke van Mourik, BeSafe
Okke showcased how levelling technology can improve installation accuracy and enhance safety outcomes in real-world conditions.
In the modern day car seats, having a lie-flat feature has become common practice, but this in itself leaves users open to misuse, due to huge variations in vehicle seat angle, with anything from 5-25 degrees, which can directly influence the angle of the backrest for the child. If used on a very flat bench, the angle can end up being less than 20 degrees, which in a collision will increase the neck forces on the child rather than the seat absorbing the energy. Add to that a lie-flat seating position, consequences in a heavy frontal collision could be severe.
This is why BeSafe designed the universal levelling technology. This unique system can always be installed horizontal in every car, meaning the backrest angle of the seat is always the same, counteracting the varying bench angles.
How Extended Rear Facing Makes a Difference
Speaker: Emily Udmann, VTI
Emily presented compelling evidence on the life-saving benefits of extended rear-facing travel and the importance of promoting it.
The Swedish Plus Test is widely regarded as the Gold Standard in child seat testing. By making the stopping distances much shorter, therefore exposing the dummy to much higher energy pulses. As it has been shown that a child cannot withstand a cervical stress greater than 130 kg, the Swedish Plus Test measures this force, establishing a maximum allowed limit of 122 kg.
The primary goal is to ensure that, by using a Plus Test-approved seat, a child will not suffer any life changing injuries. It is a voluntary, supplementary test which only rear facing toddler seats can be put forward for, with standard approvals in place (R44 or R129) and full details of technical drawings provided. So far, 350 Plus Tests have been conducted and only 51 seats have passed!
Revolutionary Virtual Testing with Human Body Model
Speakers: Daniele Speziani, Phitec & Okke van Mourik, BeSafe
Daniele and Okke introduced cutting-edge virtual testing methods that could revolutionise how car seats are developed and assessed for safety.
This huge step forward in virtual crash testing will change how seats are tested now and in the future. By moving away from the stiff Q dummies we currently use and creating simulations with human body models, experts will be able to clearly measure the effects of a crash on the whole body, not just on the skeleton, but on the brain and organs too!
Round Table with the Speakers
The day wrapped up with a round table where speakers took questions and exchanged ideas, highlighting the need for continued collaboration and innovation.
Final Thoughts
It was inspiring to see so many experts come together with one shared goal: making every journey safer for every child. We’re excited to bring these insights back to our community — and to keep the conversation going.