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Choosing the right child seat is essential before taking your child out on the road, so we’ve put together this quick guide to the best on the market.
The rules in Luxembourg are very clear: children must be strapped into a child seat when travelling in a car until they reach a height of at least 1.50m, but there are so many options on the market that it can be difficult to know where to turn.
Which safety device should you choose? A rear-facing seat, a bucket seat or a booster seat for older children? Which European standard should you trust? The experts at the ACL have taken all of these questions on board and provide some answers to them below. For the purposes of this comparison, 26 different child seats were tested on safety, function, ergonomics and pollutant content.
In the end, 14 of the seats we tested received a “good” rating and seven models received a “satisfactory” rating.
Four seats (the Lettas Murphy, the Nuna Tres LX, the Chicco Seat4Fix and the Chicco Seat4Fix Air) were rated “fair”. One thing they all had in common was that they were suitable for children of all ages and sizes (up to 1.50m). Of course, this sort of versatility requires a certain degree of compromise if a single seat is to be used for babies and toddlers and as a booster seat.
Baby seats
Particular care is taken in the manufacturing of baby seats that can be used for infants of 40 to 83cm, and these did, in fact, score the most highly. The Mima and Maxi-Cosi brands are also worth a special mention, given that their products are among the best we have tested (see table).
Toddler seats
Those seats aimed at children of up to 1.05m tall also generally scored well with our experts, with three different brands achieving ‘good’ ratings in our tests.
Booster seats
Simple backless booster seats are only recommended as a makeshift solution for slightly older children as they don’t provide any protection against lateral impact. This is why the ACL experts were particularly fond of the Joie booster seat. Alternatively, parents might want to look at seats that can accommodate children between 70cm and 1.50m, which scored slightly less highly in our tests. These are generally safe, and have the added benefit of weighing around 10kg as opposed to an average of 5kg for a booster seat.
What are the rules in neighbouring countries?
The rules in Germany are the same as in the Grand Duchy, meaning that car seats are compulsory for children under 1.50m. The legislation governing car seats is different in Belgium and France, where children must travel in a car seat until they reach 1.35m. Children in France also no longer have to use a booster seat after their tenth birthday.
For more information, an article on the regulations governing carrying children in a car in Luxembourg can be found on our site.
View the test results. Details of each seat are available on request from the ACL by calling 45 00 45-1 or e-mailing acl@acl.lu.