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Child bicycle trailers - safety

 

 

Having carried my son both in a child seat, and in a trailer, I've spent some time thinking about this issue.  Based on many discussion on the internet, many experienced riders feel that child trailers are one of the safest ways of carrying children.  Not only is the child protected inside the trailer, but car drivers give bikes towing trailers far far more time and space than they would to any unaccompanied bicycle.

Here's a translation of a child trailer safety review done in Germany, courtesy of Steph Peters from uk.rec.cycling, with permission:

Children in trailers are particularly safe

Institutions close to the car industry fulminate against bike trailers for transport of people, since the bright light sedans are becoming ever more loved and replacing some second if not first cars. Hard projectiles must occasionally take the blame for bringing the environmentally friendly variant of child transportation into disrepute.  Dekra* and Bruderhilfe let it be reported that a car speeding into a trailer can be deadly.  That cars are particularly dangerous for everyone without a crumple zone, is also sufficiently well known to the car lobby without such self publicity.

There are underwriters who make objective assessments of risk.  Last year for the first time the AZT (technical alliance centre) took the trouble to compare the danger potential of  trailers and traditional child seats for their little passengers.  27 crash tests give a clear message: children sit more safely in trailers than on the bike.  When AZT chief Dr. Dieter Anselm gave the results on 21 March 1996 in Munich, he described them as "surprisingly positive" - the AZT had approached the set of tests with a certain amount of reservation.

Subjectively children in a trailer look especially vulnerable, situated at the height of cars' bumpers.  But precisely this can save life in the event of a collision: a car shoves the trailer wholly in front of it, while the cyclist "high on a horse" is catapulted first onto the car and then onto the  road.  The transport of children in the area of the handlebars is particularly dangerous; above all when they are behind the saddle they come off lightly in head on collisions.

The trailer does not fall over as easily as a bike - and when it does, then the height of the fall and the potential for injury are clearly lower. With child seats bad accidents can take place when the bike is being loaded - a trailer with a coupling at axle height remains untouched, when the towing bike falls over.

The AZT stresses the importance of a stable trailer construction with full belt harness and the use of helmets, so that the children do not come into contact with the bumper bar.  Unfortunately the correct line for coupling is missing; the models tested could all have been improved.  The sellers and providers of trailers here are moving into uncharted territory: paragraph 21of the StVO* forbids carrying people on the "goods area" of a trailer.  This regulation does not directly apply to bike or special child trailers, but there is room for doubt.  In the view of the AZT this is a pity: "The manufacturers of bike trailers must be given a clearer legislative framework, so that they can further develop this - so far as we can determine - currently safest transport mode for children and thereby can contribute to better protection for children in traffic".

 

*Translator's notes:
Dekra is a German organisation that tests cars for safety, promoting themselves as consumer champions, I think funded by the car industry. Bruderhilfe is an insurer with church connections. StVO is a German law or regulation

--
Steph Peters
Chorlton Wanderers Cycling Group
Monthly slow and easy rides from South Manchester
http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/cycling/chwan.htm

Original article here:

http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1033/9602anhaenger.html

Conclusion

I personally have no worries at all about carrying my own child in a trailer.  I've done this many times, and will do so again in the future should we have another young child.  Not only is it very practical and safe way of transporting the child, but it's a great way to go shopping too, and not to have any problems with parking.  Our current son is now too large for the trailer, and thus either follows on a trailer bike or his own bicycle.

 

 

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