How we test prams and strollers

To earn our recommendation, a single stroller must have an overall score of 70%, while double strollers must have an overall score of 65%.

Our overall score is made up of safety and ease of use components. We don’t recommend strollers with any major safety or durability failures.

Safety score (50% of overall score): In our stroller safety assessment, conducted to the AS/NZS 2088:2013 standard, we look for hazards to the child and the carer using the stroller.

Major failures include insufficient child retention, strangulation hazards, poor stability (tipping), head entrapment hazards and structural durability failures.

• 100% = no major or minor failures.
• 80% = one minor failure.
• 70% = two minor failures.
• 60% = three or more minor failures.
• 40% = one major failure.
• 20% = two or more major failures.

Ease of use (50% of overall score): Strollers are put through their paces in real life.

• We check how easy it is to adjust the safety harness, seats and handle.
  
• We apply and check the brakes.
  
• We push strollers over rough terrain, up and down stairways, and through doorways.
  
• We fold and unfold strollers, carry them, and lift them into and out of a car boot.
• We check the capacity of the stroller’s bottom basket, if it has one.
  

Durability: All strollers are attached to a machine that continuously simulates the action of mounting a kerb. This shows whether anything breaks, falls off or stops working properly after regular use.

For brands we haven’t tested before we put the strollers on a bumpy ‘rolling road’ machine for 64 hours at a speed of 5km/h. Strollers that look like they are suitable for jogging get an extra 10 hours at 10km/h on the rolling road to see how they stand up to faster speeds.

We also put strollers that look flimsy or have something different about them through the ‘rolling road’ test. We used to use the test for all models, but these days we rarely find models that fail this test.

Durability does not contribute to the overall score.