10 Things You Didn't Know About Car Seat Safety

 

We've been keeping children safe for over 15 years.

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1 80% of child car seats are incorrectly fitted

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2 All Car Seats have to pass a UK safety standard called ECE R44.04. This safety standard is not as rigorous as it could be (for example does not include side impact testing) and many seats are tested to a much higher standard using the swedish plus test. The new Isize regulations (many isize car seats are now available) recommend children are rear facing up to 15 months. Manufacturers are still producing non isize car seats but new car seat designs must conform to the isize ( R129) standard.

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3 Car seats are all classed in weight/height groups, Group 0+ (birth-13kg). Group 1 (9-18kg) , and Group 2/3 (15-36kg) - not age groups.

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4 Children are not tiny adults. At birth a childs head represents around 40% of his or her bodyweight. At 1 year old it is around 25% of his or her bodyweight. Bones are not fully developed which means that the spine and internal organs are at greater risk.

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5 In a frontal impact crash at 30 mph, everything in your car travels forwards with a force of
25 times it's own mass. This means that adults in the back of the car travel forward weighing the equivalent of 3 tonnes.

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6 When a collision occurs at 31 mph the stress inflicted on the neck of a child that weighs 15 kg and is seated in a forward facing position will be the equivalent of 180-220 kg. If the child instead is seated rear facing, the stress would be reduced to 40-60kg. We advise that children are safest rear facing for as long as possible.

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7 The world leading country in terms of child safety in a car is Sweden. Between July 2006 and November 2007 not a single child under the age of 6 years old was killed in a car crash in Sweden. 

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8 The most powerful collisions we are likely to be involved in are front collisions and in such collisions a rear-facing child seat reduces the risk of injury by around 90%, compared to 50% in a forward-facing seat.

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9 In the UK the law states that your child must be in a child restraint system until they are either 1.35m tall, weigh 36kg or are 12 years old. Crash Test dummies do not have ages so it is the weight or height that is the key factor. Booster cushions provide very little protection for a child.

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10  In the UK around 200 children are killed or injured in car crashes ever year. 

11 Long journeys e.g. a journey to a holiday destination on a motorway are generally the safest. Short journeys on busy roads are more dangerous. 

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