WhizRider
(Last Updated On: October 4, 2022)
If you’ve been with us for a minute, you might have noticed that we’re pretty particular about following best practice and advocating that caregivers choose the safest option. You may have also noticed that while we review a rather large number of car seats and booster seats, we remain pretty focused on spending time with more traditional types of car seats and booster seats that meet or exceed federal safety standards.
This is a long way of saying you might have noticed the WhizRider – Portable Car Seat Option and wondered why we haven’t mentioned this product.
We’ve met their team at more than one conference, we had a lot of questions about how it worked and whether or not it actually passed FMVSS testing. Those interactions were so challenging that we didn’t mention them in our writeups of the events, nor do we stop by their booths now.
We’re kind of relentless about asking those hard questions about new products because safety is always our number one goal. We understand that using a car seat or booster seat in a taxi, ride share, or other fast-moving situation can be a real challenge and many families may decide that something is better than nothing. We simply can’t agree with that when the something in question isn’t explicitly approved by NHTSA and doesn’t meet the basic federal safety standards.
If a product team can’t quite explain which category it belongs in or how it’s considered safe by the federal safety standards that are at the core of the standardized CPST curriculum we all learned from, and that many of us teach from, well, we’re not inclined to assert that such a product is a safe option for the families who we serve.
To review or even mention a questionable product would inspire some of our readers to think that we’re endorsing it or giving “permission” for its use. We’re not in the permission business, we’re here to offer suggestions about best practice. At no point have we felt that the WhizRider represents best practice so we have avoided discussing it.
Until now. And we’re still not going to say a lot because this isn’t a full review. There will never be a full review because our hesitations remain and because WhizRider themselves are sending the following letter to their customers:
Letter from WhizRider
Make of this what you will. We will not be reviewing the WhizRider.
