To want to get out of the car and bang all the people who dont wear seat belts up against their window screen to show them what it would be like to crash ?

I just emailed before but it's the Dept of transport and the environment you would need to write to I think.

Might email the DETR (or whatever it is) and ask them about advertising the car seat thing more. They were quite good in responding to my queries about public transport and seat belts.

We were strapped in the car as kids and I have always been too scared (of an accident, not of the police)to allow my kids to travel without being in car seats. I think there is a cultural/generational thing here - my Italian parents in law have travelled in the back of the car with a grandchild on their lap , but then I think about how many times I've seen toddlers standing between their mum or dad's knees riding on a Vespa in Italy...bloody madness. I also see many more Asian families with children not strapped in - any Asian parents on MN this evening? Is there a similar attitude to my Italian in laws?

I was speakless last week when a friend of my neighbours drove passed me in her convertible beetle (with the roof down) with her year 2 daughter (so aged 6 or 7) standing in the back with no belt on!

I can remember having a car seat in the early 80s.

My Dad recntly went o a trip with some friends and none of them were wearing seat belts and they got stopped and all got fined.
My Dad still has to be told to wear one though so its obviously not enough

Rear seat belts became compulsory (to be fitted rather than used) from around the beginning of 1987, I know because I was in the rear seat of my FIL's car (a Maestro and without seatbelts) at the end of 1986 when it was involved in an accident. I ended up in hopital on skull traction & could have died. If I was a child I would have been thrown forwards and possibly injured the front seat passengers on my way towards the front window. When his car was replaced it had seat belts in the rear.
Front seat belts have been compulsory (first to have them fixed, later to have to wear them)from the 70s.

I know my parents used to put the huge pram top in the back seat with no seat belt around it and I was born in 1977 so it must have been after that. Then I remember, at about 3, being strapped in with an isofix type thing of the time with a harness style seat restraint.
The laws are crap though as it isn't releavant for taxes (although some do have them), buses or trains. I still haven't taken DCs on public transport as there are no belts that can be fitted with car seats. I guess the likelyhood of a bus/train crash is a huge amount less than a car crash though.

I walked hom with dd1 and dd2 when they left SCBU, I remember the shock from the nurses who didn't know what to do, in the end they made sure they were wrapped up well and safe

Gingeme - actually they can't force you to have one. But you cannot carry a baby out without one without signing a disclaimer, in case you drop the baby. It's go bugger all to do with car safety!

Some people go home from hospital on the bus, in a taxi or walk and in all those scenarios it's not illegal to carry a baby without a carseat (unless the law has changed very recently).

Yes- but HV's at mother and baby clinics could do more proactive demonstrations etc. I know there's only so much you can do - more tv adverts showing 'pretend' babies being thrown from car seats without properly fitted straps etc. The drinking and driving adverts with the shock tactics certainly made some people sit up and listen.

Only problem with that Luci is that does not cover the 0-5 yrs age group...

I think schools should get more involved in explaining to the children about seatbelt safety - perhaps if more of those parents heard it from their own kids "mummy, please strap me in - I don't want to go through the windscreen", they might listen!

think we should show them the clip that was on "wildest police videos" (or something with a similar name) last night - clearly showed a cab driver (in the US) driving without a seatbelt on (the owner oft he firm had fitted incar CCTV to make sure his drivers were doing their jobs properly) - he fell asleep at the wheel....woke up with a jolt, the car swerved and he was thrown from the front left hand side of the car to the back seat on the right hand side - pretty horrific to watch but certainly showed what can happen (he was lucky and survived with only cuts and bruises).

Gingeme, I'm always tempted to hit people who are on the phone and then get the police to pull their phone records so I can prove it was their fault for driving while on the phone.