Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

to be absolutely appalled at this?

49 replies

sickoftheholidays · 22/03/2011 16:53

Have just witnessed a mother strap her 18 (ish) month old child into the front of the car with a seatbelt over the top of his stage 1 car seat WHICH HAD THE 5 POINT HARNESS REMOVED!
the car was old, battered and in looked generally shabby which would probably indicate they probably didnt have a lot of spare cash, but really, could they not afford to buy even the cheapest car seat with a proper harness? at first I thought she was just strapping in using the seatbelt while putting the pushchair in the boot, but no, she drove off with him like that.
Is it just me or is this just really lacking in common sense? and how the hell do you damage a car seat harness to the point where it has to be removed?
I really hope someone is going to come and tell me that there is a rational explanation for this, because I just cant see one.

OP posts:

foreverondiet · 22/03/2011 22:38

Of course I didn't mean they should go back to their own country - I just meant that not everyone has the mentality that children must always be correctly strapped even if its the law here. Maybe its wrong to judge people who have different cultures to ours.

thisisyesterday · 22/03/2011 22:40

oh calm down, where did she say people from other countries should go home??

it is a fact that in many other countries they are fairly lax with car seats. I've heard some absolute horror stories from 3 separate Italian friends about things they've seen over there because they just don't seem to bother with car seats much at all.

so it's entirely reasonable to wonder if that could be the case here

Yellowstone · 22/03/2011 22:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

yonker · 22/03/2011 22:46

YANBU, children should never be in cars without proper safety restraints. However perhaps the mother really did think her child was safe. Re people from abroad, I live in Italy and see far worse every day. It is unusual here to see a child safely strapped into a car. Almost all of DS's school friends go to school with NO seat belts, often in the front of the car. They are 4/5/6 years old. I have seen kids aged about 2 or 3 here in the front of cars sitting on the drivers knee. On one occasion we were passed on a motorway by a car doing about 90 in the outside lane, in the back seat was a woman holding up a baby of about 6 months so the baby could see out of the window, no seat belts in sight. That actually made me feel sick when you think what could have happened. What makes it even worse are the high number of accidents here, see them all the time. Some people have no idea when it comes to car safety and children. Hate it every time I see it.

Yellowstone · 22/03/2011 22:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

notyummy · 23/03/2011 07:57

Hmm, I haven't read anything that implies that all foreigners should go back home/we should revive the empire.

Just a statement that in some (not all...)countries, rules on car seats/child safety in cars seem to be less strongly enforced, and therefore people do not always use car seats. A different set of expectations. Why has that got people so upset?

It is no different than someone coming to the UK and observing that a lot people here seem overweight compared to other countries. It appears to be factually true, and is because we have a slightly different culture around eating/drinking.

It's a bit of a sad day when someone can't make a point without having the racist/xenophobic right wing card waved at them.

notyummy · 23/03/2011 08:18

BTW this is just one example, but it quotes research from the UAE showing that 80% of people were aware of the effectiveness of child seats, but that 98% of children travelled unrestrained in cars in the UAE. I assume it just not culturally the norm to do it there.

nickschick · 23/03/2011 08:24

My neighbour transports his 3 grandchildren all under 6, sitting on settee cushions often without seatbelts.....

My friend who has a Greek husband showed me her dds new sandals that had melted away from the heat of the exhaust as she rode on the back of her Dads motorbike whilst in Greece and she didnt have a crash helmet.

StealthPolarBear · 23/03/2011 08:32

i have done this in am emergency (DS was probably older - 3ish) when the straps would not pull out at all and I had to get home - used it as a sort of booster seat. It was an emergency though and I sorted it oout as soon as I was home

Yellowstone · 23/03/2011 08:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl · 23/03/2011 09:29

Foreveronadiet used a word that defined her polish acquaintance's job, to explain how she knew her - why the hell is that snobbish? You wouldn't have objected if she'd said 'my polish doctor' or 'my polish accountant' would you?

FGS - why do some people have to take a tiny detail from someone else's post and rip them to shreds for it?

The important part of what she was saying was that, according to someone she knows, people in another country have a different attitude to the importance of seatbelts.

thaigreencurry · 23/03/2011 09:36

The fact that she was bothering to use a car seat would suggest to me that she doesn't know which seat is appropriate for her child.

LIZS · 23/03/2011 09:42

yanbu but some older Stage 1 seats used a seat belt not a harness from 9kg(ie Britax Supercruiser). Can you be certain it wasn't one of those ?

annapolly · 23/03/2011 10:05

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

KnittedBreast · 23/03/2011 10:08

get over yourself. please

exhausted2011 · 23/03/2011 10:16

so maybe she got the car seat second hand, and it's falling apart, maybe she just took the harness out to wash, and she forgot and hadn't had time to fix it back in
maybe she is doing the best she can

that''s the problem with judging, you never know what's behind it

FollowMe · 23/03/2011 10:19

With a stage 1 car seat, you need to use the seatbelt to actually go behind the seat and hold it to the chair! If the seatbelt wasnt holding the seat in place and wass simply wrapped around the front of the seat (with nothing there to hold it in place) then in an accident the car seat would simply have slid out from under the seatbelt and been extremely dangerous!
A highback booster has a clip at the side to hold in the place the top of the seatbelt and hooks at the bottom to hold the bottom of the seat belt in place. A stage 1 seat will have neither of those as the seatbelt is not intended to go round the front.
The seatbelt would be not even touching the child either as it would be held forward from the child, so in an accident the child could very easily have slipped out from behind the belt, even if the seat did happen to stay in place!
I think in an emergency the child would probably have been safer sat in the back with just a normal bellt around their body than in that bizarre homemade car seat!

LIZS · 23/03/2011 13:55

Example of a stage1 seat which uses adult belt only . These only went out of production in the last few years.

foreverondiet · 23/03/2011 13:58

Just to add, my cleaner (who happens to be Polish) regards me as a close friend, have known her for 7 years, helped her through domestic abuse, subsequent divorce, difficult daughter, breast cancer scare etc.

I was just using the term cleaner to describe how I knew her. Of course I should have just said "Polish friend".... a bit pathetic to jump up and down about the post.

FWIW in the book freakonomics they describe safety tests which showed that for a child aged 3 or over there wasn't really a difference in safety between adult seat belt in back and car seat.

And as I said, 5 years ago many highback boosters were sold as suitable for 10kg (roughly a year).

Followme is right though about the stage 1 car seat, unless they are isofix they are attached via adult car selt belt. If this was round front of seat rather than through the correct fastenings it would have been more dangerous than simply fastening child in adult seat belt in back of car. In an emergency (as described by stealthpolarbear) you should put the manfunctioning seat into the boot of car and used adult seat belt in back.

exhausted2011 sorry if you drive a car, can't just do "the best you can" - you either use the correct car seat or you don't transport children (or in some circumstances you are legally allowed to strap child into adult seat belts (although think only for children aged 3 and over).

foreverondiet · 23/03/2011 14:02

LIZS yes my sister has one of those, bought around 5 years ago.... I bet thats what the OP saw. Sold as being suitable from 9kg (although the small print said better from 10.5kg). Made by totally reputable manufacturer as well.

MrsH75 · 23/03/2011 14:11

It depends on their size though as well. My daughter was two last month but is the same height as a lot of three year olds. She has just outgrown the seat with the five-point harness and we have a seat with an adult seat belt with a seat, back and arm rests. The seatbelt sits comfortably in the same position as on adults. My other daughter (5) has moved to a booster seat with arm rests as the seat my two year old is now using was too small across the shoulders.

SallyScuttles · 23/03/2011 14:11

Lizs That seat you linked to just shows how things have changed. I have a 9mo and I would never ever put her in a seat like that with a just a car seat elt across her. Unbelievable now that they were ever sold!

MrsH75 · 23/03/2011 14:15

Types of child seat:

www.childcarseats.org.uk/types/index.htm

Yellowstone · 23/03/2011 14:23

forever possibly with a bit more maturity whichever of the two it was who tapped into the thread and jumped up and down won't do so in future. Yes, Polish friend would have been better.

There does seem to be a lot of looking down on Poles here at the moment, it annoys some of my kids. Still, their language should be appropriate if they want others' to be too.

When did all this high-tech car seat stuff come in? My eldest is 20 and the youngest 8 - has there been an explosion in development or did I just not do it right? (went to Mothercare, bought a mid-price one and that was that).

Flip

1 2