This week is Child Protection Week, thus Sharon Gill believes it’s the appropriate time to have a go at people who apparently don’t love their children enough to strap them into a kiddie-seat or use an appropriate seat belt in the car.
The chances of a small child being seriously hurt – even killed – during a collision are five times greater when the child is not securely fastened into an appropriately-sized kiddie-seat.
Paramedics notice on a daily basis how irresponsible adults allow their children to sit in the front seats, or even stand between the front seats. If the driver is forced to brake sharply, the child would become a projectile and smash into the object in front of him – such as the windscreen or dashboard.
In the event of a collision, a person’s body continues to travel at an average of double the speed of the vehicle in which he is travelling – AFTER the vehicle stops. That is the speed at which your child could hit the windscreen or dashboard of the vehicle. In some cases the child is flung right through the windscreen.
Collisions frequently happen at such a high speed, and in a split second, so there is no time for the child to try to hold onto something to save himself. Furthermore, compared with adults, a child of four years and younger is top-heavy in relation to his body mass. Neck muscles are not yet very strong. In serious collisions, injuries affecting the neck and head are very common in the case of children.
A baby seat should be secured according to the manufacturer’s specifications at all times. Babies over the age of one year should preferably be kept in the back seat in view of the fact that the front seat can act as a buffer (manufacturer specifications). However, it is absolutely essential that children continue to be kept in a baby seat, or, when older, that they use a seatbelt while sitting on a specially-designed booster seat, which allows for the natural curiosity of a child to be satisfied while the parents drive around.
One size doesn’t fit all
Most new vehicles are equipped with an airbag in the front passenger seat. If the person using that seat is shorter than 140 centimetres in height, then the airbag should be disconnected. Airbags have been designed for adults and can cause serious death or injury to children during a collision.
Vehicle seats are primarily designed for adults; therefore it is important to make use of specially designed support equipment for children under twelve years of age. Children up to the age of four must always be put in a baby or child’s seat.
Since a side impact collision can also have very serious repercussions, ER24 recommends parents select a model that has additional side protection.
According to known guidelines, children are five times safer sitting in the rear of a vehicle. It is better for the child to sit behind the driver so that the driver can see him in the rear view mirror.
Should you see a child being transported in an unsafe manner do not try to handle the situation yourself. Simply contact the Metro Police or Road Traffic Authority and give them details of the vehicle registration number and details about where and when the incident took place.
I once refused to take a child in my car because the mother would not strap her screaming offspring into the kiddie-seat. My friend’s excuse was: “She doesn’t like being strapped in.”
I hope my reply got through to her: “She’ll scream a lot louder if she goes through the windscreen.”
3 Comments
I could not agree more. I have had endless run ins (I lean out of my car window at robots, or, if I am walking, poke my nose in if I see a car stopped and a child in a car in a dangerous seat scenario) and nine times out of ten the adult driving or sitting on front seat with child on their lap, will swear at me or tell me to mind my own business. I have seen a baby lying in the road after going through a windscreen. It is about time strapping children into car seats and placing older children in the back seats – belted in – came into law in South Africa. Or aren’t children in South Africa worth the legislation?
Well now what a can of worms !
What is more important to our administration, keeping secrets from the public with their media mugging laws, or the lives of the children ? They are just not interested in any children but their own, whether they starve, or travel. And I’m going to stop here.. on that hobbyhorse.
Otherwise, thanks to namby pamby laws, we are not allowed to give our children the corrective, good discipline they so desperately need.
If a toddler screams and shouts in a supermarket, there is nothing we can do about it.
If a child doesn’t want to be strapped in a seat, and performs, the hapless parent can’t just go ahead – some other person walking past may report them for child abuse.
This lack of ability to control our children is leading to more than this, thanks for finding the tip of the iceberg.
Yes, these seats should be compulsory.
Even at the slowest of speeds, children not strapped in are projectiles.
A note of sympathy for those who have suffered.
Carol Parsons in France submitted this question: Isn’t it illegal? It is here and in UK.
Sharon Gill’s response: The illegality of something has never stopped people from doing it – repeatedly. That’s why there are thousands of unlicensed and/or drunk drivers and thousands of unroadworthy vehicles on South Africa’s roads.
But it’s less of an effort to hide in the bushes with a radar gun and catch people for speeding than to chase after an obviously overloaded minibus taxi with no tail-lights and a sound system that rattles the windows of all other cars within a fifteen-metre radius.
Traffic policing in South Africa is more about revenue than road safety.