Adrian Lund Restraint Quotations

Ford has been doing a good job with some of its recent seat designs such as those in the Freestyle SUV and Five Hundred sedan. But the new Ranger head restraint is more than three inches below the top of the head of an average-size man. This means it won't begin to provide adequate protection for many taller people in rear-end crashes. It's puzzling why Ford decided that buyers of the new Ranger should get less protection against whiplash than people in some of its other vehicles.

People think of head restraints as headrests, but they're not. They're important safety devices. You're more likely to need the protection of a good head restraint in a collision than the other safety devices in your vehicle because rear-end collisions are so common.

It's encouraging that only 12 of the 58 seat/head restraint combinations we evaluated didn't make it to the testing stage because of marginal or poor geometry. The auto manufacturers have been working to improve this aspect of head restraint design.