ISOFIX is the international standard for attachment points for
child safety seatChild safety seats are seats designed specifically to protect children from injury or death during collisions. Automobile manufacturers may integrate child safety seats directly into their vehicle's design...
s in passenger cars. The system is also known as
LATCH ("Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children") in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
LUAS ("Lower Universal Anchorage System") or
Canfix in
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It has also been called the "Universal Child Safety Seat System" or
UCSSS.
ISOFIX is International Organisation for Standardisation standard
ISO 13216, which specifies the anchoring system for Group 1 child safety seats. It defines standard attachment points to be manufactured into cars, enabling compliant child safety seats to be quickly and safely secured. ISOFIX is an alternative to securing the seat with
seat beltA seat belt, sometimes called a safety belt, is a safety harness designed to secure the occupant of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result from a collision or a sudden stop...
s. Seats are secured with a single attachment at the top (top tether) and two attachments at the base of each side of the seat. The full set of anchor points for this system were required in new cars in the United States starting in
September 2002September 2002 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- September 1, 2002 :...
.
In Europe the system is known as ISOFIX and covers both Group 0/0+ and Group 1 child safety seats. The mechanism for attaching the seat to the Lower Anchors is quite different than in the United States. In Europe two "alligator-like" clips connect the seat to the Lower Anchors rather than the open clip style connectors commonly used in the United States. However, some carseat manufactures are beginning to offer true ISOFIX type attachments in the U.S. In the European standard, there are also various installation categories: "universal", "vehicle-specific" and "semi-universal". The main difference being that "Universal" represents use of a
top tether strapA strap, sometimes also called strop, is an elongated flap or ribbon, usually of fabric or leather.Thin straps are used as part of clothing or baggage, or bedding such as a sleeping bag. See for example spaghetti strap, shoulder strap...
with the ISOFIX anchorage, "vehicle-specific" represents the usage of the ISOFIX anchorage without the TopTether in specified vehicles only, while "Semi-Universal" represents usage of the ISOFIX anchorage together with a "foot-prop".
http://www.britax-roemer.de/upload/download/typenliste/17/DUO%20plus%20Typenliste.pdf http://www.britax-roemer.de/upload/download/typenliste/13/SAFEFIX%20plus%20Typenliste.pdf
For Group 2/3 seats there is a system called ISOFIT which anchors the seat to the vehicle so it cannot slide around when not in use. In the case of Isofit, the child is held into the seat using the vehicle's existing seat belt system, not the safety seat's straps.
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