How do people feel about this campaign to make kids under 4 sit rear facing?

[RareTiger]

Don't get me wrong I understand it's safer, but I also know sometimes it's impractical, for mine there are both fast growers and big kids my just turn 3 year old has been in a high backed booster seat for over 6 months now she 17kg wears 4-5 going into 5-6 clothes, but if the law changed I woundnt be able to use the car for her, now for preschool and shopping? fine a incontinence at times but I would just walk or get the bus I do half the time anyway, but for her speech therapy I would have to stop it the travel would mean if something even a bus is 10mins late I don't get home for my son after school or we don't get to speech therapy (3 hour bus, 2.5 hour train ride one way)
I like the current rules both sets, both sets are for different types of car seats why change something that works?
Even with my son we couldn't find a size 0+ to fit in are car we were struggling to fit him in the size 0 at 6 months old he was the size of a 18month old we had no choice but buy a size 1 forward face, he's now 5 been in a high back booster for 2 years

Making a nuanced and balanced decision I would call it.

I don’t go through life terrified of everything and it isn’t a quality I want to pass on to my children.

Your choice 👍

Sorry to nitpick on such horrible data. But the number is 65 for fatalities over the period of 2013-2023, which of course includes lockdown, where there were fewer car accidents.

The cause of fatality is not given, so not all of those will be internal decapitation. Not all of them will be caused by forward facing seats. Some accidents are simply not survivable, and children who are unrestrained (which is not recorded in that dataset) are much more likely to be killed in car accidents. Head injury is a much bigger (more frequent) problem than internal decapitation.

Internal decapitation can cause paraplegia if it is not instantly fatal, so is likely to also be represented in the serious injury figures as well which is closer to 1000 children in these age groups over a 10 year period. It is possible that is part of what is showing in the "serious injury" differences before and after 2016. However, this will also cover things like traumatic brain injury.

The fact that something is a small number does not mean that it doesn't matter for the person that it happens to. That must be horrific and I cannot imagine what parents and children go through in that scenario. However, I don't believe that changing the law would change these numbers by very much - we are already at good levels of car seat usage, so the more urgent cause is increasing car seat use in the nonrestraint groups and increasing correct use in the groups of parents who use car seats, as well as raising the minimum standard, all of which is happening over time. If you're a law/policy maker, that is going to have far more impact than the difference in the behaviour of parents who are already choosing very safe and high quality seats and using them correctly.

If you're advising individual parents who are already safety conscious then it makes sense to explain RF vs FF as a safety concern because it is the easiest/simplest and most effective change that you can make, especially if you have a spin type seat and the switch is as simple as turning the seat in a different direction. But that is a different scenario than "should the law change?"

I agree this approach can really backfire and make some people stop listening. I sometimes think it's better to look at the situations that people are actually in, what their barriers might be and offer more realistic advice if the ideal scenario isn't possible.

It isn’t nitpicking - it was another poster who was talking about internal decapitation and I was trying to say that even if this had been the case in every single one of the cases you mentioned that it would sill be an absolute tragedy for the individual families affected but not indicative of immense and urgent danger those who FF are likely to experience if they don’t change their ways.

No it was me who was nitpicking not you

I agree that in reality these are very small numbers we are talking about. I just wanted to point out that internal decapitation, while a horrible injury and a scary phrase and, yes, a reality, is not the only thing which causes injury in car accidents. If you spend a lot of time on ERF groups then you could be forgiven for thinking there was an absolute epidemic of it happening when this is not really a true representation of the picture.

In reality if you're in a car accident and your child is properly restrained in any seat suitable for their age and size, they will probably be fine.

If you're unlucky enough for the accident to be extremely serious, then it's possible that there is no car seat in the world which could have saved them.

We are talking about a small gap between these two scenarios, larger the younger your child is, and you can absolutely narrow it by using a RF seat. But the chances that you'll be in that scenario in the first place are very small, so the older your child is, the less that it makes sense to prioritise that tiny possibility over things like financial hardship, the safety of other passengers in the car (e.g. an adult who is too close to the dashboard) or even as the child gets older, things like comfort or preference.

If RF is causing no problems then it makes sense to continue, but if it is causing a problem then it can make sense to weigh it against other things.

I agree the "You need to put your child RF otherwise they are definitely going to die" is unhelpful and hyperbolic.

I think it's likely that many of the children who died or who were seriously injured were either not in car seats or were in badly flitted seats. This is the priority for safety. FF vs ERF is really getting into marginal gains territory.

Type of car is probably more important for safety than any car seat. We may not like the Chelsea tractors but they keep the occupants very safe in the event of a crash. There doesn't seem much point putting a £500 ERF car seat into a 20 year old Nissan Micra. I've even seen them in vintage cars which are so totally unsafe as have no crumple zones etc.

Sorry @BertieBotts i was saying you weren’t being nit picky! I actually massively appreciate your help on car seats and you have me a lot of help under another name when I was buying one for my daughter!

As always I really appreciate your posts on this subject and I know I’m not the only one.

@BertieBotts If RF is causing no problems then it makes sense to continue, but if it is causing a problem then it can make sense to weigh it against other things.

Thank-you the voice of reason and logic. RF just isn't for everyone, if its making a child cry or puke then it's just not worth the risk of the driver being distracted.

Sometimes people become so blinkered in their thoughts and it's not always black and white.

Swedish cars are also longer, whilst their weather patterns mean that the roads are more dangerous for longer throughout the year therefore accidents are more likely.

Surely their legs would be all bent up and they could potentially knock their face on their knees if in a sudden impact? In my Fiat 500 there is very little room for legs in a front facing position.

She is the car seat states 14kg

I’m glad to see it. This has been coming for a long time, it was known when my now 14 year old was a baby but very expensive to buy the seats and they were hard to find, by the time my 8 year old was born the seats were affordable and easier to get hold of. He rear faced until around 5/6 years old. Why wouldn’t you back a campaign for safer car seats for children?

Me neither. I didn’t know people rear faced their 2 year olds 🤷‍♀️

I definitely agree with the boosters I see loads at my son school a few are smaller than my son his in 7-8 clothes and there not in boosters or child seats

Which one is it? None of them, to my knowledge recommend below 15kg.

15kg is the absolute lightest they should be in a HBB, but it's strongly recommended to wait until a minimum of 18kg. A toddler is also not old enough to understand the importance of stressing sat properly in their seats, not leaning out etc, so even if over 18kg, she's too young. With that size you risk submarining, where she could go under the seatbelt in a crash and be flown forwards into the windowscreen.

A toddler about your daughter's age recently died in a HBB crash that her mum was fine from. She'd been leaning to one side playing etc because she's a toddler.

18kg and 4/5 really is the minimum safe age for a HBB.

But the fact that you happily seemed to forward face a 6m old means I'm not sure safety is on your priority list.

You can get 5 point boosters, ment for disabled kids will cost £2000-£3000 but there is a 5 point add on that been car tested and approved and that's about £150 Google a behavior cat harness? We havent needed one my 3 Yr old has been told it's dangerous to talk her seat belt off and has never tried

Some car its the seat belt length too, I had to go out and buy the seat belt iso base for the baby seat because the selt belt wasn't long enough to go around the baby seat in are old car

@MintTwirl
Why wouldn't I back it?

Because ERF just isn't the holy grail. If a child is uncomfortable, crying and puking then the driver is more likely to be distracted and crash.

You also have issues with the weight of them. Someone might be able to take a HBB on a bus to be met with someone at the other end but a rear facing seat no chance.

The cost grandparents, two cars.

It's not a single issue. And I think Bertie posted 65 kids were killed over a number of years?
That's not actually a lot of kids when you consider the number of car journeys taken. And some of those accidents no car seat would ever have made a difference.

It's a great idea. I despair at seeing tiny toddlers forward face when the evidence is very clear re safety. My 4.5 year old is reaching the end of age 5/6 clothing and 20kg and happily rear facing.

2006 Hyundai Amica it's a small 4 seater cat build for around town, when we bought it it was all we needed before kids, we had given up on the idea kids by then too, and after number one can we started look for a bigger car but It took 2 years with both of us losing are jobs to covid, before we had the savings for a different car

I had a mirror, and it didn't help me much at all. Whether it was my car, the seat heights or whatever*, there was no way that I could get a clear view, and the view I got involved so much peering that it took my eyes off the road for far too long. Now just a quick glance in the rear view mirror and I can see both.

*My DD was involved in positioning as well, so it wasn't used error

We have moved my son to the fount on all journeys becuase of how car sick he get he's like me as a kid, if we are driving over 1 hr we stop every hr for 20 mins to give him a break but even on short journey of 20mins he feels sick in the front better than to the local supermarket we had before.

But the first time he was car sick we were on a motorway I had to just let him throw up everywhere even know I was was the front passager after we managed to saftly pull on it took 20mins to clean him and his seat up we had to drive to the next town buy him all new clothes buy bed pads to cover his seat so he wasn't just getting covered again, even after carpet washing the car we could smell it for the next few weeks.

I was worst I was siting in the back middle aged 8 I think I said mum I feel and it just covered the front window screen almost caused a crash, I didn't get any warning when I was car sick

100%.

I had a pretty bad accident years ago when my oldest was about 3, and the first responders were so relieved to see that they were RF. The dr who checked us over said it probably saved their life.

It depends on the car seats rules
if the cars seat is on weight 13kg max but can forward face from 9 kg usually between 9-12 months they will hit 9kg
If its on hight 15 months min for rear face and recommend till 4 Yrs old