Rear-facing car seats to 18kg in Britain Campaign!!!

[justforinfo]

Hey guys!

I am a child seat fitter at a large child seat supplying store (I don't think i'd be allowed to say which one!) and I have recently read about rear-facing seats to the age of 4 and after doing some intense research have found that the offer optimum safety for children. They are the norm in Scandinavian countries where child fatalities in crashes are near enough 0 every year. Britax, Graco etc all stress on the websites for scandinavian countries that children should be rear-facing untill they are about 4 years of age but there is no mention of this anywhere on the British sites. The British medical journal stresses that rear-ward facing is the safest option. So why are these seats not widely known about? Why are they not in big stores like the one I work in? Apparently it's because British parents don't want them. So are they trying to say British parents don't value their children's lives? The customers i've spoken to about these rearward facing seats had never heard of them and were shocked they were not being given information that would potentially save their child's life! These seats were not even mentioned in ANY of my training.

It's only through my own personal research I do to make sure i'm offering the best and safest options to parents did I find out about them!

I am currently trying to raise awareness of these seats and to get some at least on display in the company I work for. At the minute this is pretty single-handed!

I'd love to know what your views are on the seats and if you would like the option to have a seat that is 5 times safer?

I'd need alot of support to make any changes to what is supplied in store, but if parents are contacting big chains that supply child seats and asking why they are not being offered these seats it will change! Consumer pressure works wonders and I am at a loss to see how "health and safety Britain" has missed this!

I may just be talking out my backside and parents may be perfectly happy with the traditional seat but i'd appreciate the feedback all the same. Please take a moment to look at this website and watch the crash tests. www.rearfacing.co.uk

Sorry about the essay!
Thanks!

I'd love a copy of that leaflet to give to DD2's playschool & DD1's school. Lots of the parents are taxi drivers so don't even put their children in seats as you don't need car seats in taxis do you? The fact it's their family car and the children aren't paying customers so still need a car seat - makes me want to scream.

I think contacting your local MP and asking if they would support a change in HCP training to either not say anything on car seat safety or to promote rfing as long as possible. I used to go to a mother's group and asked if we could get a HV in to talk about car seat safety (some of the mums were turning their babies really early), the HV that came was the local 'expert' she had never heard of ext. rfing. Her first question was 'But what about their legs?' I spent the session educating her on rfing and car seats.....

Would connecting with a baby/child charity, like BLISS (prem babies are vulnerable in car seats due to positional asphyxiation), NSPCC, RoSPA or the NCT, be a good thing?

I've just been reading this month's Which? magazine and was very pleased to see they've started to include rear-facing seats in their evaluations. But I think they would have explained the safety benefits of using these seats better.

With a critical mass of MNers choosing rear-facing car seats, the market in the UK would change and our kids would travel more safely. But I don't think the car seats board is the best place to start a campaign.

ROSPA already advocate rf seats afaik. The Sunday Times did a fab piece on them a while back which was what got me looking at them for dc3. I think the main problem is that people don't know about them and if the major retailers just stock forward-facing (or like my nearest JL stock the Polaric but won't help you fit it) the parents will just go with the flow.

I think we'd need mnhq on board for a campaign - don't know how we do it. that's probably the most effective way of changing things. But we need to engage MNers on the other boards first.

hi. I've posted something on MN campaigns about this

wrt putting a RF toddler seat in a small car - we had one in our Audi A2. and, tbh, there was little difference, in terms of room in the front seat, between the fitting in the A2 and in our XC90.

it is not always the size of the car that matters, but how well the seat suits a particular car/how that car is organised internally etc.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself - but I went form driving an XC90 to driving the A2, and the seat actually fitted better in the A2 (despite it being a seat sold by Volvo! )

dd2 is now in a monster of a seat, but again, that is because of the cars we had when we bought her seat - space was not an issue for us

I have an isofix besafe one in my Skoda Fabia- which is def not a large car and there is loads of space in the front passenger seat for my tall husband.

I agree that if big shops stocked them and parents were told about the safety of rf until kids were 4, loads more people would choose them. However people can know all the facts but unless most parents can go along to their local store and get the rf car seat there and then and get it fitted they just won't bother with rf.

my attempt to start a thread on this in mumsnet campaigns has not started well. I need to find some stats for rear-end collisions.

I think there is a lot of preaching to the converted on this thread. Which is all very nice, but being totally honest, doesn't help to convince me at all .

I'd need some statistics - injuries or deaths which could have been avoided or ameliorated if a car seat was RF. By car type, child age, collision type. Because like most people, I think my kids have good, solid car seats, they're fitted properly and strapped in. When I was little we didn't have car seats at all (am 40 now). I don't know anyone who has been injured in any kind of motor accident. So this all sounds like scaremongering.

It sounds like I'm very mean and uncaring, doesn't it? But I think so much unnecessary and expensive kit is sold to new parents, and I just don't see the need.

If I'm wrong, it's going to take more than the statement "they are safer" to convince me. How much safer? For whom? Under what circumstances? What does 'safer' mean here?

NightLark have a read of this site for why rfing is advocated. This site has stats/figures and stories of children who have survived catastrophic crashes.

In the States rfing is recommended by the AAP (American Association of Paediatricians) and by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to age 2 or until the limits of the seat (some of the seats go to 45lbs now rfing) as on the front page of Joel's journey linked to above.

The BMJ published an study into rfing nd found it to be safer for the under 4's to rf here.

To be honest it is just physics that makes it safer, most accidents happen when a car is moving forward at speed, the few that do happen when the car is reversing are at low speed (how fast can a car go backwards?) so are of lower impact.

The mass of a baby/child is skewed compared to an adults with a child having a larger head on a weaker neck with more bones in the spine than an adult (vertebrae don't ossify or harden until 3-6y and each vertebrae is in many parts rather than the one of an adult). The spinal column (the bones) can stretch further than the spinal cord (the nerves) - if the nerves get stretched to far then the snap. This is known as internal decapitation or sometimes euphemistically in medical literature head to neck disassociation injury. Joel was a survivor of this.

I'm sure others will be along with other information.

Thank you ! Will read (have already flicked through the BMJ one).

onetwothreefourfive - no, but not actually in market for one tbf. DD is 9y so too old. But I am curious. I got an isofix for DD when little as was really interested in car seat safety, etc. So this just interests me, esp as I prefer to drive a little car and would not have wanted to have to had a bigger car.

TruthSweet - I'm having a bit of trouble sending the leaflet but will do it asap!

Update on the fitting problems - I went to the local fire station this morning and they showed me what to look for to understand if I'd fitted it correctly. They checked my DD's rear-facing Recaro Polaric and it was fine, and they checked the other seats too (I have two older sons) and then let the boys have a look at the fire engines. :o

Two very delighted boys (that's our half-term activity for the day ticked) and one safely fitted car seat.

Thank you Gloucestershire Fire Service

Can someone with a bloody good grasp of physics do a 'what happens to a ffing child in a head on/side/rear shunt' and same for rfing child as I have reached the end of my understanding of physics and am having a new one ripped on the 'campaign' thread.

Pretty please? Before I get convinced that rfing is shiite and I need to forward face my brood?

I was joking on the ffing my brood comment - I think

I got a response from John Lewis today. Here it is...

Thank you for your recent enquiry reference rear facing car seats which you sent to JL.com.

The debate on rearward facing seats versus forward facing seats has been an ongoing technical discussion for many years.The present regulation that is applied by all European countries requires children are placed in a rearward facing car seat up to the age of nine months or 9kg or 12 months 13kg depending on the seat used.After that limit there is a clear difference between Sweden and the rest of Europe.
In Sweden it is recognised that rear facing position is safer for children up to 4 years. Those seats need additional securing means such as a foot prop and tethers. In the rest of Europe this point is not shared and forward facing position after 9/12 months is widely used. The forward facing seats are much easier to install than the seats in Sweden and are compatible with smaller cars.
Brtitax currently have one rear facing group 1 car seat sold in the UK it is extremely difficult to fit and only one retailer in the UK stocks it (In Car Safety based in Milton Keynes) it is a very big seat and it only fits 6 cars in the UK.In order for it to fit the front passenger seat has to be pushed all the way forwards which means no-one can sit in the front seat. It requires a top tether kit and a support leg.
Dorel have offered the Maxi Cosi Mobi to a couple of small independent nursery retailers as a trial but are not keen to offer it outside the Scandinavian market. They are not prepared to sell it to JL.
I am fully aware of the increased interest in rear facing car seats and I have been in contact with the suppliers of Be Safe car seats in the UK and I have arranged to meet with them to look at their products at the Nursery trade show in September when I will be able to see the full up-to-date range available for the UK market.
I appreciate you taking the time to write to me with your views and I can assure you as a John Lewis Buyer I take customer feedback seriously and will review the assortment to ensure we have the products available which customers want to buy.

Aswellasyou - They have just lied to you. On multiple counts.

This is a list of all the cars the MT fits into.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page there is a list of 17 retailers that sell it. Not to mention every Volvo dealership would be able to supply a Volvo branded MT.

This doesn't look difficult to fit, does it?

This document lists the space required for a MT as 31". The Recaro Polaric has space requirements of 32" That wouldn't be the Recaro Polaric JL sell would it? Does that mean that they are selling a car seat that leaves a front passager with even less room than a MT?

I think you need to email back cc-ing the Director of JL (or senior manager) and let them know that you know a staff member just lied to you. Very specific lies too, one retailer, only six cars it fits - very specific. Not exactly 'Ooh, it's difficult to get hold off, I don't think it fits many cars' type vagueness is it?

Bastards!

Right, I will be writing to JL here too. They sell the polaric - I bought one last weekend. They haven't trained any of the staff to fit it. It's not actually that hard to do, and it doesn't take up more space than we're used to: the passenger seat isn't any further forward than it was before. We have a Renault Scenic and we can still fit 3 seats in the back (DS1's booster is slim-fitting but goes in the middle with no problem. When the fire service checked DD's polaric I asked them to check the others too and it was all fine.

JL are being crap on this. I was in two minds whether to complain as the actual people I dealt with there were very polite and it wasn't their fault they weren't trained. The lady I dealt with on the phone who sold me the seat was misinformed but she was polite too.

I will write a letter tomorrow. I think a physical letter would be more effective than an e-mail as it will probably get to a person rather than a generic fending-off-enquiries droid.

onetwothreefourfive, I've pmed you.
I didn't realsise the Multi-Tech was the one 'available' in the UK. I actually tried one in my sister's car yesterday but the foot wouldn't reach the floor. It really isn't that big at all. I didn't get round to fitting it seen as it wasn't going to be suitable anyway. it's strange that they stock the Polaric knowing that it's big and not amazingly easy to install. There are loads that would be suitable for more cars. I gave her a few suggestions but I'd only just bought mine yesterday so I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination.

This shop sells the multi tech.

Nold- it's too late for you now, but we've just been in and they not only checked that seats fitted in mine and DH's cars, but then when we bought one (they keep a reasonable stock) they got DH to fit it in his car (because his was the one we want it in for now) under instruction so they knew we had understood and could do it safely.

We actually went for the besafe isofix, which is not particularly difficult to install. Made for an expensive week though!

Yes, why aren't big retailers such as Mothercare stocking these rear-facing seats. I'm sure they are well aware of their existence and safety record! You would think they would want to cash in on such a great product. Although I am very happy to buy from an independent and support local small businesses over Mothercare.

Most UK people with kids drive cars that would easily fit RF seats. I drive a 3-door Corsa and easily fit the Britax 2-Way Elite behind the driver's seat since I am the UK average 5'4 and my tall husband drives a Ford Mondeo and has no space issues either when seat is fitted behind the driver's seat.

Is there any current petition for the government to start promoting RFing?

Maybe they don't sell them because it would then imply that all the forward facing seats they sell aren't as safe...

My local baby shop is one of the few that sell RF seats and they do take up more room than the front facing ones so even with a Volvo XC90, the Multi-tech was the only one that would realistically fit in my car without having to have the front seat too far forward.

We ended up buying the Volvo branded one and it cost about £150 which I don't think is unreasonable but we ordered it from Volvo and no-one had fitted one before and when we asked for help they got the manual out! So we ended up doing it ourselves (although we had seen the man in the baby shop demonstrate it in our car). Luckily in my area the council have a road safety team who check car seats and they were at a local shopping centre last week and they had a look and said it was fine. Neither of us are numpties but it's nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about give you the thumbs up. In fact, they see so few of them they said they were really keen to have a look and were really impressed with it.

I think it's a shame that so many people don't know these seats exist, although many people seem to be in a rush to put their children forward-facing for some reason ? maybe because they can see them, who knows? So it's hard to say if they'd really catch on with the masses despite the safety issue.