..to ask why you allow your child to sit in the front seat of the car?

[schooltripwoes]

By child I mean one small enough to need a car seat / booster (under 11s or thereabouts).

All safety advice I've ever read clearly states that children are generally much, much safer sat in the back of the car if there were to be an accident.

Passenger seat safety features such as airbags are designed to protect an adult body, and as such may not work well for a young child.

Yet many of the children arriving at my children's school / hobbies travel sat in the front of the car (I notice this mainly for ages 5-8). In some cases it's because the rear seats are occupied with several siblings / lift shares, but in most cases it's not.

If you let your child sit in the front, why?

PyongyangKipperbang - what car do you have if you don't mind me asking? Trying to convince dh on a 4th and the car is one of his arguments against it. We have a scenic which work well for 3 as they all fit in the middle, the 6th and 7th seats aren't the best though and would mean no boot?

@Frazzledmum123 look at the Ford smax it's got full size boot seats so even teens and adults that are happy to clamber in can fit and you still have a decent boot with all the seats up. Yet, it's much less van-like than the galaxy.

Fab, thank you!

I always have dd in the back. It makes sense that she is safer at the back if there was an accident and also I should check this but I thought children are no longer allowed to be strapped into the front at all.

I have put her in the front maybe 5 times in 3yrs of driving for very short journeys as I've had the back piled with stuff.

I should check this but I thought children are no longer allowed to be strapped into the front at all.

Yes. You should check that.

mikado1 - well your very lucky your 3 year old likes to sit like that, I have 3 children and by the time the older 2 were a year old they use to kick off and would scream for the whole journey being rear facing and would always complained their legs hurt. My youngest is now 11 months and as soon as she sees her car seat she kicks off.

What I have never understood tho, we have all these rules for our own cars but you don't need any of this if using a taxi

My 5 year old sits in the front. Having had the rear of my car spectacularly decorated with strawberry induced vomit it’s far better for all concerned for said child to sit in the front as even a ten minute journey results in vom-gate.

Friend is a police officer. Traffic queuing on motorway, car slowed down. Four year old sat in front as dad had been to collect something that had to go on the back seat. Car behind didn’t realise traffic was slowing and went straight into the back at high speed. The rear of the car pretty much disintegrated on impact. The child survived ONLY because she was in the front. The rear isn’t always safest. It depends on a lot of factors.

Friend is a police officer. Traffic queuing on motorway, car slowed down. Four year old sat in front as dad had been to collect something that had to go on the back seat. Car behind didn’t realise traffic was slowing and went straight into the back at high speed. The rear of the car pretty much disintegrated on impact. The child survived ONLY because she was in the front. The rear isn’t always safest. It depends on a lot of factors

Gosh that's terrifying @Dillydallyer

4 kids and also I’m sure the stats say most accidents are rear enders.

I’ve never understood the obsession some people have with car seats. It seems such a small risk to spend so much time on. Kids do much more dangerous shit every day of the week.

Because I've got a small sports car that no one would buy because some prick keyed it and more than halved it's value. No car seat can fit in the back seat as they're only about 3 inches deep.
I tried selling it (paid £1,600 2 years ago) it's had full MOT, new rims, new tyres and I couldn't even get the £500 asking price because every panel had been keyed within an inch of its life.
We don't have enough money to take a complete loss on this car and buy another affordable and reliable one.
DS sits in his car seat in the front, airbags deactivated and the chair pushed all the way back. I've done the safest thing i could do, ultimately I'd love a picasso or grand scenic, but that's not happening anytime soon.

@PoesyCherish I know. It was actually shown on a Traffic Cops type show a couple of years ago. They played the call where the dad rang the police. Actually I think he had broken down in the middle lane. They played the call and it cut off when the car hit from behind. Horrifying.

I’m sure the stats say most accidents are rear enders.
Yep, I'm sure of this too... especially on the motorway it's the most likely thing to happen and as motorway accidents are usually the most devastating then it's definitely worth thinking about

I put my seven year old in the front seat in his car seat because his car seat is so big it interferes with the mechanism of the seatbelt in the back but not in the front so I figure it's safer to have a working seatbelt in the front than be in the back with an non-functioning seatbelt.

In a rear shunt one of the cars is still hitting from the front. Same with a side impact. Two cars hitting head on is the rare scenario but tends to be the worst kind of crash.

I suspect the OP wants people to just own up and admit that it's because they don't care about their children.*

*Disclaimer. This is not my opinion, but it appears from the opening post that it might be the OP's analysis of the situation.

The back of the car is actually safer for any passenger - statistically, the back just gets smashed in less often.
So you could extend the OPs logic to anyone: if you really cared about your DH, should you not insist he goes in the back while you drive???

I suspect 13 years is not the best estimate of the age at which airbags go from being a net danger to a net benefit. They've probably picked a number on the high side for fear of being sued.

Seriously, hurling kids when you only want to go to the shop at the end of the road is not fun. Multicolour yawns all over upholstery stinks and is hard to clean out. And puts the car out of action / costs a lot to clean if you put it in to a valet place.

I have one who still hurls in the back of the car - the only place they can sit is in the front, and they still have to go to sleep, or they have to drive.

What do families do when they have two travel sick children? I mean you can't put them both in the front so what is the solution in that scenario?

I had my oldest in the front with disabled airbags when she was a baby. I drove a three door tiny car and was worried that in an emergency I wouldn’t be able to get her out of the back in time. We only did small local journeys in it and I felt safe doing so. You have to make your own risk assessments. I got a bigger car when she needed a new car seat and it wouldn’t fit in my car safely!

Well generally, if somebody doesn't do something that you have decided is important, it's because

a, they don't consider the same things as you important.

or

b, they consider the same thing important, but something else overrides it. (E.g. comfort, practicality, irrational fear)

or

c, they don't believe that it makes as much of a difference as you do.

Looking at the responses it's mostly C and B, but A is on a sliding scale really isn't it.

Nobody thinks safety is unimportant, but people do have different levels of safety they are willing to accept. You can buy car seats which have little airbags in which will encase your child in the event of an accident, you can scrutinise the death rates for every position in the car, you can buy a car which will brake for you if it thinks you're about to get into a collision, you can even avoid car travel altogether. There's always going to be a higher level of possible safety, so why is the level you have deemed reasonable right? It's no more right than somebody else's, who may have placed the bar lower or in a different direction. For example, I wouldn't use a sketchy old car seat or one made by an ultra budget company like Nania, but I don't think it's essential to rear face until 4 or hold off on a booster if it's an appropriate seat for your child. It's not as though everybody with a higher comfort level with safety is "paranoid" and everyone with a lower comfort level is "negligent" - that's ridiculous.

I don't live in the UK. Here, anyone insisting that their child sit down and use a seat belt is unusual - most kids travel on adult laps or stood in the middle transmission bit between the front seats....

That’s a really good analysis Bertie.

There’s a legal safety standard, which everyone has to comply with. After that it’s about personal views and priorities.

Sounds exciting Olenna. Where do you sit in the league tables?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

Too small a country to make it onto that list Behemoth. But from my rough calculations we are in line with the Europe average (and the vast majority of RTA deaths are young men on motorcycles, many not wearing a helmet - some things are universal, it seems)