to want my baby in a car seat during a 30 minute taxi journey?

[AngryBadger]

Okay, I'm travelling with my mother and my 8 month DD. We are going to visit an ill relative and will have a short flight followed by a taxi ride (of around 30 minutes, mostly on a motorway) before we arrive.

We are taking only hand luggage plus a pushchair. I want to take the carseat for DD. I am pretty sure the airline will carry it for free along with the puschair). My mother thinks I am being most unresonable and has phoned me twice to tell me so.

During the most recent call, she told me that I am being really 'over the top' about this and that my father agrees. She said that my DD will be safe on my knee because I will be wearing a seatbelt. I stayed calm (my mother is really hard work at times and starts arguments for no apparent reason) and repeated that I would rather have her in the seat as she will be safer. She then said 'If that's the case, why doesn't legislation say taxis have to carry child seats?'. I put the phone down on her as I couldn't tolerate the conversation any longer.

I don't understand why she gets so worked about things like this. I want to protect my child, I'm not setting out to hurt or upset anyone!

But, as usual, I've come away from a conversation with my mother wondering if I am actually in the wrong? She also told me that my father agrees with her and that they both think I'm being ridiculous - that's also the usual response if I ever disagree with her opinion!

I think I'm being sensible rather than precious, but maybe I'm wrong :-(

Where did I get the three miles thing from? Odd!

"Unexpected but necessary journeys over a short distance

If the correct child seat isn't available, a child over three years old can use the adult belt for an unexpected but necessary journey over a short distance. This doesn't apply to a regular school run or planned journey."

From direct.gov

I am guessing a short distance is 3 miles?

I think it must be subjective, so say if you needed to give someone else's child a lift home from somewhere because the parents had broken down, that would be okay, but if you're going off to the other side of the country it's not. I guess it would depend on how essential the journey was.

I would not risk any journey without a child seat, after turning a car on its side going a short distance at no speed at all. My children could have been seriously injured if they had not been in the correct seats. The guilt was bad enough - I would never risk it without a car seat.

If you sit a child on your lap with the belt round both of you, your full weight will be thrown forward onto your child

Yeah bertie has told me that too.
The thing is, if it's freezing icy rain and you have 4 bags of shopping, you kind of have to get home, so you have to go old school.
I will get one of those seatbelt thingies though, never seen those before.

Your baby, your decision. It doesn't make any difference to your mother anyway. I'd be doing the broken record thing.

We took ours to France for the 30 min drive to/from airport. Easyjet charge £10 eachway. To be honest it didn't even cross my mind not to.

not relevant to op, but relevant to others with older children - the black cabs around here have built-in booster seats. the middle seatback has a bit that unzips and down pops the booster, so the child can use the ordinary seatbelt. dd1 thinks this is great, dd2 thinks it is less great to be strapped in backwards in her pushchair using the wheelchair straps, but this is tough. not sure what we will do when she no longer uses a pushchair, but we don't get taxis that often.

op - yanbu AT ALL. if you could choose someone to drive your unrestrained child would it be a taxi driver? no it would not. point proven!

Airlines put the car seats in the hold . We always wrap it in a bin bag and tape it up otherwise might get filthy. Of course you should take the car seat ! I would never even consider transporting a baby in a car without one! It's illegal! When you fly your baby is allowed a folding buggy , a car seat and about 10 kg or so luggage even if they're in your lap normally. Also we actually have always put the buggy in a big plastic bag because in my experience they can get oil or other dirt on them from the luggage belt . They sometimes have the bags for buggys in the airport.

Children up to 3 years old

In the Front Seat

The child MUST use the correct child restraint.

It is illegal to carry a child in a rear-facing child seat in the front, which is protected by an active frontal airbag.

In the Rear Seat

The child MUST use the correct child restraint.

In a licensed taxi or licensed hire car, if a child restraint is not available then the child may travel unrestrained in the rear. This is the only exception for children under 3, and has been introduced for practical rather than safety reasons. You should always think about ways to make sure that a child seat is available.

Your Mother is being an idiot, if the ability to protect your child from serious harm or death, why would she even consider not using it?

... I have used a black cab type of taxi with DS in his bugaboo seat strapped in me holding on to the buggy with brakes on a few times when he was 2+ . After not having the buggy I would have put an older child on the seat with the seatbelt going under his arm so not to strangle him . My husband read a study that said that for children 3+ y having a car seat doesn't make as much difference in an accident as smaller children. It's the size of the child . Of course where the belt is going matters so not too high around their neck. Now growing up I remember our family having a few cars without seatbelt in the back . Also never had a helmet for bicycling or anything else. I am careful with my DS though .

Perhaps your mother does not want to be lumbered as a sherpa.... We'll just take this, and this, and this, etc.... The hand luggage each, the child, the buggy, the change kit, the car seat....

That was a quote on the child seat laws, also this from Wikipedia:

"The UK extended compulsory seatbelt wearing to child passengers under the age of 14 in 1989. It was observed that this measure was accompanied by a 10% increase in fatalities and a 12% increase in injuries among the target population.[47] In crashes, small children who wear adult seatbelts can suffer "seat-belt syndrome" injuries including severed intestines, ruptured diaphragms and spinal damage. There is also research suggesting that children in inappropriate restraints are at significantly increased risk of head injury,[48] one of the authors of this research has been quoted as claiming that "The early graduation of kids into adult lap and shoulder belts is a leading cause of child-occupant injuries and deaths."

Shows why you should use child specific car seats!

I had this same dilema going on holiday this year. I was not comfortable not having my 12 month old in a car seat as I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her. The airline we were with (Ryanair) charged for car seat (think it was £20 each way). In the end we drove our car to the airport so she was in her seat and then rented a car at the other end with a car seat to get us to the accomodation (hire care seat rental was free for us but some places charge a few quid). If you put seat belt around baby and you and there is a crash you will crush DC as they will effectively act as the seatbelt for your body weight. I wish more taxi companies would provide car seats / seat hire, especially the ones that operate mainly out of the airports. Tell your mother it's actually nothing to do with her what you decide is best for the safety of YOUR child.

At my DD's schools there are a lot of taxi driver dads and none of their children have a car seat even in Infants because they're in a taxi they don't need a seat

It's still their family car on a regular journey they make twice a day.

Oh and OP, you may even be able to use the car seat on the aeroplane - it's considered safer for children to fly in a car seat though the car seat has to meet FAA standards.

we have plastic based (i.e. kiddicare) not polystyrene based (i.e. brittax and the likes) car seats so that they can be bashed about (well not really but..) in and out of taxis etc if needs be. so YANBU

I am fairly relaxed about taxis (don't drive so occasionally take short taxi journeys at low speeds) - I either just have 16 month old ds on my lap without a belt, or I have him in a sling on my front with me strapped in but not him.

However, 30 minutes on a motorway I would take a carseat.

Plastic can still get stress fractures if it is dropped or exposed to extremes of temperature.

I had a Nania baby bucket for DD1 as a spare seat (manf in 2006) which was then used as the spare for DD2 & DD3. DD3 had grown out of it this year so I stripped it down to take to the tip - it had lots of white/pale blue stress fractures (was navy blue plastic) and yet it was just under 5 years old. It had been kept in a cupboard on an internal wall (so not in a garage or loft) and hadn't been dropped or mistreated in any way.

It still degraded enough that I doubt it would have been any use in an accident....

yes that is right truth, but a polystyrene one can get serious damage from a small amout of pressure if it's not static in the car. I wouldn't go about dropping either of them but for using in and out of different cars, from experience, the plastic ones do hold up a little better!

True - I have seen a childminder who does drop offs at the local school ith a car seat held together with duct tape (the polystyrene bit - could see as cover wasn't on) really sure that wasn't safe!

that's shocking! once the polysyrene ones have one crack they fall to pieces (mine did when I leant on it to reach across to get something from the seat behind it) - looked okay-ish within the cover but once I took it inside and took the cover off it was shattered and falling to pieces

Well our area has a bad rep for car seats (amongst other things) - I rang up the local police (not 999 I hasten to add!) after waiting to cross the road by the school and had 3 cars drive past, one on the phone with his child in the back, one with a toddler in the front in a booster (was about 12-18m I think but nowhere near 3y) and one had 4 children in the back.

They put me through to the local constable and he said that I could report it but they couldn't do anything with out seeing it. I asked if they would consider sending someone to the school at drop off/pick up but he said no they don't do that as the next local school (same area and less than 5mins walk) had parents throwing rocks and sticks at the police officers when they dared show their faces!!

I am an oddity though in my area - the DDs erf and DD1 was harnessed until 5 and is now in a hbb at 5.9y when most of DD2's playschool classmates are in booster cushions if that