Consumer Reports
consumerreports.org › babies & kids › baby & toddler › car seats › best infant car seats of 2026, lab-tested and reviewed
Best Infant Car Seats of 2026, Lab-Tested and Reviewed via @ConsumerReports
CR’s infant car seat ratings include 12 load-leg infant seats, meaning a “leg” extends from the seat’s base to the floor of the vehicle. Four of the six top-rated infant seats in our ratings have a load leg base. Load legs make the seat more stable, help integrate the car seat into the vehicle during a crash, and reduce the amount of impact a baby would experience from crash forces.
Published 2 weeks ago
Safe in the Seat
safeintheseat.com › post › safest-infant-car-seats
10 Safest Infant Car Seats: Purchase with Peace of Mind » Safe in the Seat
1 week ago - But, if you want a more in-depth answer to your question, we’ll get into what makes a car seat safe and some of the best infant car seat options available. For a car seat to be considered safe, it needs to be in compliance with FMVSS 213, which is the federal safety standard for child restraint systems. Without this compliance, car seats cannot be sold in the U.S., so you can be confident that any seat you buy is safe. They’ve passed all the necessary crash testing and meet all the requirements for use!
Videos
02:18
Consumer Reports tests safest car seats, launches new baby page ...
09:36
The 10 Best Car Seats 2024: Crash Tested - YouTube
01:12
2023 Honda Odyssey Rated POOR in Rear Seat Crash Test - YouTube
00:29
TOP 6: Best Infant Car Seat [2022] - Crash Tested! #shorts - YouTube
SafeWise
safewise.com › home › family safety › best car seats of 2022 – test
Best Car Seats of 2022 - test | SafeWise
April 14, 2022 - You won’t sacrifice safety for affordability with the Chicco Keyfit 30 (about $200). Compared to all other infant car seats on our list, the Keyfit 30 performed best in the head-injury-criteria portion of the third-party crash tests.
What to Expect
community.whattoexpect.com › birth month
Car seat safety ratings-where do I find them? - December 2022 Babies | Forums | What to Expect
July 25, 2022 - They don’t really have safety ratings as all car seats have to meet the same safety requirements. If you go to the nhtsa website they will give you ease of use ratings but that about it. You might find a third party who tested them independently but generally all car seats are equally safe and any set that is deemed “safer” is usually only “safer” by a negligible amount.
Babylist
babylist.com › hello-baby › car-seat-side-impact-safety-standards
New Side Impact Car Seat Safety Standards: What to Know
Discover the best baby gear to give and get · © 2011 - 2026 Babylist, Inc
BabyGearLab
babygearlab.com › vehicle safety › car seat reviews
Best Infant Car Seats | Crash Tested
Nuna Pipa RX
We crash-tested 17 of the top infant car seats from Nuna, Chicco, Graco, Britax, UPPAbaby, and others to find the very best Every newborn needs an infant car seat when leaving the hospital or riding in a car. Choosing a seat can feel daunting when the safety concerns and...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/cpst › consumer reports crash test vs babygearlab crash test for evenflo maestro
r/CPST on Reddit: Consumer Reports Crash Test Vs BabyGearLab Crash Test for Evenflo Maestro
March 14, 2025 -
I was reading up on the Evenflo Maestro carseat and saw that Consumer Reports and BabyGearLab have fully opposite crash test results for the seat. Consumer Reports puts it in its 'Best' tier in its crash test and babygearlab says it's in their 'worst' tier.
Does anyone have any perspective on why they'd be so different?
Could it be that Consumer Reports was testing it as a 5-point harness seat and BabyGearLab was testing it as a seat belt booster? It's not clear on either site. Would a 2-in-1 seat perform so differently in harness vs booster mode?
I'm not sure if there are generally known differences in the tests they do and which one people like more.
https://www.consumerreports.org/babies-kids/car-seats/evenflo-maestro-sport/m396038/
https://www.babygearlab.com/reviews/vehicle-safety/booster-seat/evenflo-maestro-sport-2-in-1
Any perspective is appreciated
Top answer 1 of 3
6
(CPST) All seats on the market have passed federal crash and safety standards (in their respective jurisdictions). Anything additional to that is 3rd party testing. Consumer Reports (I’m unsure about BGL) can also be misleading. They will give a seat a bad rating if the seat breaks in their testing, however what’s important is not if damage is sustained to the seat in a crash, but whether or not the child is injured. Think of it like a bike helmet after a bike crash. It will likely look completely trashed - but was the head inside it protected?
2 of 3
3
All car seats pass the same federal safety tests, it’s a pass or fail test. A site like Baby Gear Lab that relies on ad-click revenue cannot feasibly test car seats to the full extent required by federal regulations (every size test dummy, every mode, etc.) Crashing that many car seats, dummies, and test benches is expensive - plus they have to pay for testing facility time. Based on this, I don’t put much weight on their ‘ratings’. The safest seat is the one that fits your child, fits your car, and that you use correctly every time. _ From an Evenflo webinar: A seat with 6 Recline positions would require approximately 18 test runs (double sled so 2 seats tested during one crash test) and 36 car seats. This would be one round of testing and additional tests would be required depending on the test results and where we are in the development process The example above would take 2.5 - 3 days to complete and at a cost of about $36,000 This only speaks to the cost of testing not of the seats, shipping and engineering time
Safe Ride 4 Kids
saferide4kids.com › home › the car seat safety statistics: car crashes are top killer of children
The Car Seat Safety Statistics: Car Crashes Are Top Killer Of Children
August 28, 2025 - More of the older children were ... upon the driver’s seat belt use. 69% of child passengers ages 14 and younger killed in crashes who rode with unbuckled drivers were also not buckled up, compared with 26% of children riding ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/buyingforbaby › anyone know the legit safety ratings of different infant car seats? i see so many different ratings per car seats.
r/Buyingforbaby on Reddit: Anyone know the legit safety ratings of different infant car seats? I see so many different ratings per car seats.
December 7, 2022 -
I saw one website that listed the nuna pipa low and even the uppababy mesa mid range. But chicco always gets a high rating. Can anyone debunk these?
Top answer 1 of 3
27
I'm a Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST) in the United States and can speak on seats here. Unfortunately, there are no standardized safety ratings in the United States. It is up to each manufacturer to meet and test their seats to certain federal guidelines, and the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) enforces them (recalling seats that do not pass the guidelines). So while all seats must meet the same criteria and pass the same tests, we don't know if any seats exceed these marks. What we do know from the NHTSA sled test is that the crash simulated in the test is a pretty traumatic one, so any properly used and installed seat is a safe seat. That said, the NHTSA test does (IMO) need to be updated, and a few years ago Consumer Reports did try to make a more modernized sled test, which did yield some interesting results. I haven't personally used their results to steer me towards buying a particular seat, but if it made you feel more at ease to do so, then the only 3rd party test I have found to seem to have some merit is the Consumer Reports one. When watching sled tests, they can seem jarring and dangerous, even when the seat is used correctly. A trained eye can pinpoint actual concerns, while many sled test YouTube videos seem to create unnecessary concern. We do know from European tests that certain bells and whistles can help distribute crash forces differently (anti-rebound bars, fixed anchor connectors, load legs, etc), which might exceed NHTSA guidelines. European seats are made differently than American ones, so we don't know how much (if at all) those features can help for American consumers, but they can be something to keep in mind when buying. Ultimately the safest seat is one that is properly used, properly installed, and fits safely in your vehicle (not all seats fit in all vehicles!). I definitely recommend meeting with a CPST locally before having a baby to make sure that you understand how to use and install your seat. Over 90% of infants leave the hospital with one or more errors to car seat use, and I'm a huge proponent for drastically changing that statistic!
2 of 3
5
I mean generally it isn't Chicco but the Clek that generally gets top marks (and top weight, not a lightweight seat). Canadian made with steel, published safety results, and very little messing about. In general, you can find ones that are certified in Canada, and it will likely be slightly stricter (EU ones are just different seats). That said, in frontal collisions most are pretty robust. Side collisions the US doesn't have good standards on, and it sucks. Anyways, installation can make all the difference, and some cars have challenges for some seats (some seats are far more flexible, if you think you won't have a stable car). Try it out ahead of time, and go see a CPST. Looking back, getting a good combination seat makes a lot of sense. My kids were out of the infant seat inside of 9 months, and while the rocking and moving ability of the infant car seat was nice I'm not certain it was worth it. Also, you really aren't supposed to keep a kid in a car seat of any sort for more than 2 hours at a stretch , and a lot of the "benefits" of an infant car seat over a combination one are basically invitations to not abide by that.
Consumer Reports
consumerreports.org › babies & kids › baby & toddler › car seats › how we test child car seats
How We Test Child Car Seats via @ConsumerReports
This includes, among other factors, the clarity of instructions, installation, adjusting the harness, and the seat’s weight. This special episode of the Talking Cars video podcast comes to you from the contracted test labs where Consumer Reports conducts crash tests of child seats for our ratings.
Edmunds
edmunds.com › home › research › are infants safe in their car seats? | edmunds
Are Infants Safe in Their Car Seats? | Edmunds
May 5, 2009 - Car seats are not currently tested for performance in a side-impact crash test. In 2002, however, NHTSA analyzed how two car seats performed, one convertible seat and one rear-facing infant seat, in side-impact tests of eight vehicles, as an ...
DOT
crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov › Api › Public › ViewPublication › 813396 pdf
DOT HS 813 396 April 2025 (Revised) The 2021 National Survey of the
significant changes in restraint use rates between 2019 and 2021 for all age groups (Tables ... Figure 17. Child Restraint Use by Age and Sex in 2021 ... Table 6. Restraint Use Among Children From Birth to 12 Months Old ... 1 Survey data is obtained on children newborn to 12 years old in passenger vehicles at a nationwide probability sample of gas · stations, day care centers, recreation centers, and restaurants in seven fast-food chains. 2 Use of car seats (forward- or rear-facing), booster seats, and seat belts.
BabyGearLab
babygearlab.com › vehicle safety › car seat reviews
The 10 Best Car Seats | Crash Tested
Nuna Pipa RX
After spending tens of thousands of dollars on crash testing car seats in a certified testing lab, we discovered that not all car seats are equal, despite...
Cars.com
cars.com › home › news › latest news
Cars.com’s 2021 Car Seat Fit Report Card | Cars.com
September 27, 2021 - Cars.com’s 2021 Car Seat Fit Report Card compiles a year’s worth of our Car Seat Checks in 51 vehicles. See the results here.
Cars.com
cars.com › home › news › car seat check
Car Seat Safety Checks & Ratings | Cars.com
Search Cars.com's collection of car seat safety checks that evaluate the installation difficulty and fit of various child car seats in the latest individual models.
Imperfect Home Making
imperfecthomemaking.com › family and relationships › parenting › baby safety › infant car seat crash test ratings you need to know
Infant Car Seat Crash Test Ratings You Need to Know
November 26, 2024 - While there are no standardized safety ratings for infant car seats in the USA, the manufacturers must test for and meet particular Federal standards. The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration can enforce these standards and recall the ones that don’t meet them. Crash testing is a pretty vigorous safety test.
GitHub
github.com › fboulnois › nhtsa-car-seat-safety
GitHub - fboulnois/nhtsa-car-seat-safety: An analysis in R of the NHTSA data on infant and child car seats
Many infant and child car seats are available on Amazon, but which are truly safe? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a Car Seat Finder tool but unfortunately it is difficult to compare and contrast car seats across brands, features, and ratings. To investigate in more detail I downloaded the raw NHTSA car seat data and analyzed it using R. I was also interested in highly rated car seats that are part of travel systems.
Author fboulnois
Reddit
reddit.com › r/cpst › travel car seat with high crash test/safety ratings
r/CPST on Reddit: Travel car seat with high crash test/safety ratings
April 26, 2025 -
I am flying with my 1 year old in a few weeks for the first time. I have seen lots of posts recommending the Cosco Scenara for the airplane. I will be doing quite a bit of driving at my destination and have to admit, this car seat doesn’t look like it would provide great protection in the event of an accident. I cannot really find any information about crash test or safety ratings. Can anyone provide any insights or recommend a travel car seat that for the airplane that also has high safety ratings in the car?
Car and Driver
caranddriver.com › home › shopping advice › best infant car seats of 2025, tested by the experts at good housekeeping
Updated for 2025: Experts Test the Best Infant Car Seats
November 14, 2024 - According to Uppababy,"it has new added safety features, which include European belt routing, 20% larger UPF canopy, larger headrest, more robust infant inlay, and a fourth rebound carry handle position for vehicle use." ... Don't have a lot of space in your car? This car seat's for you. The Clek Liing has a narrow frame making it ideal for smaller cars, or if you need to fit more than one car seat in a row. The GH Lab particularly loved the addition of a metal load leg for extra stability and crash absorption.
The Car Crash Detective
thecarcrashdetective.com › home › recommended car seats
Recommended Car Seats - The Car Crash Detective
March 13, 2021 - Recommended car seats, trusted reviews, and comparisons of the latest infant, convertible, combination, and booster car seats on this car seat blog.