..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?

Our car was in for repairs and we could not fit our two car seats in the courtesy car (not like for like as other party wrongly blamed us - and were found out eventually). It was either put dd1 who was three at the time in a car seat in the front (dd2 in back) or not go anywhere as a family in the car for the nearly three months that our car was being repaired.

It is a problem with safer modern car seats - they need room.

Ajust a small reminder that low speed and short distances do not mean an accident cannot be servere. My dh was turning right and stationary about 200 yrds from our house when he was hit by a speeding driver overtaking other traffic. It was only him in the car fortunately as the whole passenger side crumpled from the force of other driver hitting him at about 70 (estimate from the police). It was a modern safe car and we were very lucky not to be in it with him. You can drive as safe as you like but you can do nothing about other road users.

hoho in our case the kids swapped every 20 mins to half an hour. that was the longest we could get without hurlathons. Even then that was with plastic sheeting and a bowl to hand.

But tbh we just didn't drive anywhere all of us, or if we absolutely had to we took 2 cars more than once.

I hope when your baby is in the front you have the passenger air bag switched off, if you don't it could kill your baby I watched top gear and if you saw what i did you would keep baby in the back and stop and sort out any serious crying. Same goes for kids to small sitting in the front with or without a car seat it's lethal. I can't believe parents still do it. In wales you have to be over a certain height to be allowed to sit in the front. It should be that for the whole of the UK.

In wales you have to be over a certain height to be allowed to sit in the front. It should be that for the whole of the UK.

Eh? How do the rules differ in Wales?!

Seriously Astrid, so many people on this long thread have discussed airbags. Not every parent who makes a different choice to you, within the law, is ignorant or stupid.

I can’t find anything online suggesting that the rules are different in Wales so I’d take Astrid’s assertion with a pinch of salt unless she provides a link.

My kids are 18 and 15 and still sit in the back. No idea why. They just get in there. They don't have car seats though.

They will have probably made decision in their family best interest. If the kids fight constantly it might increase the parents chance of crashing. Sickness, or full car are other reasons. Of course there will be a few who are ignorant of safety differences but most will make decisions with their childs best interests at heart

Dc2 is 10 and sits in the front to go to school. It's never more than 15mph all the way there, so I'll take the risk that the 120mph head on collision isn't going to happen.

Dc1 is taller than me. I'd no more insist on her sitting in the back than I would an adult, unless we're travelling with another adult.

They both sit in the back for long journeys. Partly for safety and partly so I have easy access to my fruit pastille stash which goes on the front seat.

We all make judgement calls every day based on circumstances at the time. Being snarky or having pointed conversations with virtual strangers in the playground helps no one.

Just to remember though that being tall is not the same as having the bone strength of an adult.

Well I managed to roll my car yesterday going at 30 so will definitely not be having either of mine in the front again! Back of the car was completely fine but the front was fucked.

Oh no! Never mind your car though, how are you?

Five seater, four DC 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Sometimes the back is full.

Isn't a booster seat in the front safer than no booster seat in the middle with a lap strap?Although I'm more concerned about the idiots who mount the pavement in their cars either due to refusing to park more than 6 feet from the school or because they drop their kids off in the zig zag and can't get past the other cars .

It's probably more dangerous on the pavement these days than the front seat.

I remember the primary school run when I was little back in the 70s. It was a 6 mile drive away so the parents took it in turns to drive. We used to fit 4 children plus a dog in an MGB GT! I guess it was the attitude in those days - you got the kids in the car and took them from A to B.

Yes I think a full seatbelt is much safer than a lap belt regardless of position. I think lap belts are really rare these days, though. It's been years since I've travelled in a car with one although admittedly I'm not often scrutinising the back seats.

YY we used to have multiple people under one seatbelt quite regularly in a Metro as well which was basically a death trap if you were hit! We had no idea - my parents assumed that this was the safe and responsible thing to do as everyone was belted in. Even as recently as about 6 years ago my mum didn't have a booster for DS1 so offered to drive with him on my sister's lap, I had to explain he'd be safer in his own seatbelt even though he was really too young to go without one, but it horrified me, as it hadn't occurred to me she would think that an adult's lap would be safer but of course that was the context.

I've never sat mu child in the front but I'm commenting as I can see a few people questioning forwarding facing children before four, I put my Dd forward facing from 9m due to sickness, I didn't want to and honestly didn't think it would help but it instantly made a massive difference

iggi im fine Thankyou! Amazingly!