Child car safety tests / The Swedish Plus Test

The Swedish Plus Test is so tough that only rear facing car seats can pass it.

All child car seats in the European and Scandinavian market must be approved according to the legislation ECE R44 or UN R129. As a voluntary approval that manufacturers may choose to test their car seats for, the Plus Test comes on top of this.

The requirements in the Plus Test are so strict that forward facing child car seats would not be able to comply with them.

The thinking behind the test is that no child sitting in a Plus Test approved car seat would sustain any severe or life-threatening injuries in a collision.

Safety first

The test might be voluntary on paper, but in reality, that’s not how we choose to see it. BeSafe always put safety first, and the Plus Test is of the highest importance for us to pass when we bring new seats relevant for the test into the marked.

Guarantee

The National Society for Road Safety (NTF) in Sweden is the organisation publishing The Plus Test. The test itself is implemented by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute.

A Plus Test approved car seat get an additional marking as evidence, giving you as a parent a guarantee that your child is even safer if an accident should occur:

In a statement to BeSafe the director of communications at NTF, Rickard Cosini, explains why they believe the Swedish Plus Test is of such high importance for both child and parent:

– If possible, NTF always recommends choosing a child car seat with the Swedish Plus Test approval. When selecting a seat with the Plus Test marking, you have an extended warranty that your child won’t be exposed to life-threatening strain on the neck in a head-on collision. We also prefer people choosing a seat approved up to 25 kilos to minimize the risk for misusage. This allows children to sit backwards in the same seat until it is time to switch to a forward-facing one.

Read more: International testing of child car seats