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The SCaRAB airbags offer protection no matter the front seat position.

The Future of Back-Seat Safety When it comes to safety advances, the back seat may finally catch up with the front.

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“If rear occupants don’t wear their belts, they’re putting themselves at risk and putting other occupants in danger, too,” says Emily Thomas, an automotive safety engineer at Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center.

Technology Takes a Back Seat Until the mid-2000s, the back seat was always the safest place to sit. But crashtest evaluations, such as those done IIHS and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), have

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nbelted rear-seat occupants are eight times more likely to be injured and twice as likely to die in a crash as belted rear-seat occupants, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Yet an IIHS survey found that only 74 percent of rear-seat passengers in private vehicles reported buckling up, compared with 91 percent of front-seat passengers.


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