Would you do anything and if you would, what?

[RudsyFarmer]

Was behind an ‘84 plate car today at the roundabout. Small child in the front seat bibble, bobbling from side to side wildly. Thought ‘for goodness sake that child should be in a car seat’, then child turned around and realised i knew the child 🤦🏻‍♀️

Age will be either four or five. Car so old that safety features must be non existent. I walked past the car just now and the child is sitting on one of those booster seats without a back. I think those are now deemed to be unsafe in law and a HBB is the seat this child needs but I thought I’d check on here.

Lastly if this child is in an unsafe seat and you knew would you do anything?

It would depend on the weight of the child - www.halfords.com/baby-and-child/advice/booster-seat-legislation.html

If you know the child why not just mention it to the parent?

Bibble?

A 5YO in a backless booster is fine. I think new legislation is that they can only be sold for 22kg and over but that doesn’t apply to older seats you already own that were previously approved as group 2. You’re right that it’s not the safest possible seat but it’s not widely inappropriate to point where you need to do something. I have a 5YO and just about everyone I know uses backless boosters on occasion for stuff like taxi trips or transporting an extra child for a playdate.

Child is very small. Definitely not the size of a 6 year old which seems to be the age 22kg is aligning itself to.

Okay. I can tell you now though. That car and that seat and a big crash will see that child dead instantly. Most of the journey the child wasn’t even in the seat belt and was turning round and making faces at us. Makes me feel ill to even think about it but if the laws says it’s fine I shall do nothing.

It's only new designs of backless booster that have to be minimum 22kg. The vast majority of backless boosters already on the market are 15kg minimum, not to mention they may have bought it ages ago, those car seats just keep going forever as they are solid plastic with no breakable parts. I've only actually seen one 22kg min booster for the first time this year. So while it's not best practice, what they are doing is perfectly legal unless they happen to have bought a brand new booster within the last couple of years and it's the newer regulation one.

The law does say that the child must use a seatbelt, so not using the seatbelt properly would be illegal.

You can't say with confidence that a child would suffer "instant death" in any crash, especially if they are using a booster. Although a high backed booster is better, a backless one is better than nothing. In fact there are some studies that suggest on a population level, the high backs don't perform better because so many people have the headrest set to the wrong height anyway.