I have written a letter to send to my MP and the childrens secretary. Before I send it I'd like some feedback from Mumsnetters? Here it is...
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I am currently trying to chose a group 1 carseat (roughly 9 months to 4 years) for my daughter, who has just turned 9Kg and is 10 months old, before she entirely outgrows the group 0 seat she is using (which will happen within weeks). I am dismayed to find that there is no single, clear source of reliable safety information.
Which? carry out independent testing but some of their results are keenly disputed, not least by a significant number of paediatricians. This is worrying. There is also a rearfacing carseat lobby, who have some persuasive evidence to suggest we all should be using one of the half or dozen or so rearfacing seats available for children up to 4 years old (and sometimes beyond). Yet another picture emerges from the most often consulted source of safety information- carseat retailers. The likes of Mothercare, Halfords of Kiddicare.com are often unclear about what seat is safest and the fitting an installation advice received by such retailers is regularly called into question.
Some manufacturers do maintain lists of cars known to be a good fit with their carseats, however the lists typically only cover a limited range of the cars commonly found on the UK roads. Where a parent purchases a carseat online they are often effectively gambling that they will fit it correctly to their car, so fitting lists need to be far more comprehensive and detailed by each variation in model. I have heard estimates that as many as 7 in 10 carseats on UK roads are incorrectly fitted. It shouldn't even be 1 in 10!
It all builds to a picture whereby a concerned parent can find it completely impossible to know what kind of seat provides what quality of protection. Price and manufacturer provide no clear indication either, with some very expensive seats being widely condemned and some seats at half the top prices being much praised (which ones depends on who you believe of course).
A few years ago the government introduced ?Sharp? testing to give motorcyclists a more accurate picture of what level of safety a helmet could provide. After some initial teething troubles with what exactly was involved in the testing there is now a wide consensus among riders and manufacturers that the Sharp tests are useful. The sharp tests were developed from the NCAP safety testing of cars, which again has been found to be very helpful to both the buyers of cars and the manufacturers.
With the ongoing political interests in minimising road traffic injuries and deaths and in saving money spent on public services (for example the cost to the NHS of treating a seriously injured child) shouldn't we be looking to having a proper, official and reliable way of rating the safety of child car seats? This, surely, is too important to leave to conflicting sources like Which? and the Scandinavian official tests. It is definitely too important to leave to the advice of a minimally trained teenager selling these things on their day off from college, or from a video clip posted on a website, but all too often parents find this is what they are having to rely on.
I envision that the proposed body for testing child carseats would be virtually self-funding too, with manufacturers being asked to cover the testing costs of the seats they submit. After a period for fine-tuning the practices testing could then be made mandatory.
I see this as an absolute win-win situation, for parents, for children, for manufacturers and for politicians. I await your reply with interest...
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So Mumsnet, what do we think of the idea? Am I onto something here or am I alone in my confusion?
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9 replies
SaffronCake · 16/08/2011 11:14
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