New! EU wants to forbid forward facing car seats

[MissHH]

Read more here:

kidsincars.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-european-research-children-should.html

What do you think? I can clearly understand why looking at that report.

Ds2 is 9 months old and actually is 'old' enough to go front facing but as he is only 16lb, he will be rearfacing for a good while yet..

This thread title is very misleading. The link does not suggest "that the EU wants to ban forward facing car seats." It just says that some European wide research has suggested rear facing is safer.

If legisaltion was on the cards I would be horrified. Sometimes compromises have to made and choice is needed. My DD gets car sick if facing backwards and would sream her lungs out if put in a rear facing seat now. We would be unable to travel. The forward facing seats are not dangerous, they are just slightly less safe than some rear facing. A child in a modern car with all its safety features, in a high quality forward facing seat is much safer that most children who have travelled throughout history and travel still in most countries. Risk is relative.

god my kids would go totally mental facing backwards

The report recommends that legislation be updated as it currently states that children are safe to travel FF at 9kg. It appears that the whole technical community agree that this is not safe and UK parents are being wrongly advised. As the report points out there is a massive gulf between technical findings and current legislation, so one way or another the legislation should really change in order to give parents up to date information.

Hopefully, as parents become more aware that these seats exist and the benefits of them, demand will rise and therefore manufacturers and retailers will make them more available and hopefully no one will be forced into anything through legislation....in an ideal world anyway

If you can speak Norwegian you'll hear that they say that EU wants to forbid FF seats for kids under 4 yrs:

www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/381443

It is the third news case in that show.

not only would my kids go mental travelling backwards up to the age of 4 - no matter how "non-dangerous" it is to sit with bent/crossed legs I'd rather for car journeys (which when my DC are on them are usually pretty long) that my children were comfortable - making it a safer and more pleasant journey for everyone.

both DS1 and DS2 at 4 (DS2 currently being 4) are much bigger than your "average" 4yr old.....

my dd's who are travel sick were never sick when rearfacing as babies. their travel sickness started when they went front facing.

roll on next week, when i can check out the nw rf seats with my new car. am really hoping the concord one will fit.

I hate the word "ban".

This should not be legislation.

Parents should be given the information and left to make their own choice. And RF carseats should be made more readily available.

My ds would have hated being in a rf carseat at the age of 4.

Plus it can't possibly be comfortable.

And lots of children get travel sick travelling backwards - my ds did.

It's all a bit nanny state-ish for my liking. What happened to people being allowed to make decisions based on the information available?

they arent forbidding them, just making sure that parents in the uk know thats it safer to stay rearfacing for longer and gfor us to have the products available for us to make that choice.

when dd1 was born, i was told to turn her forwardfacing at 9months. nothing was said about weight. just 9months.

dd2 actually exceeded the rf limit for ehr seat at under 6months old. by the time she was under two she was also too heavey for the standard second stage seat. i found the britax eclipse, that had a harness and was suitable to age 6, but she was too tall for that as well. we had the britax cruiser for a while, but she outgrew that quickly, so went into a high back booster. at age 5 she is the same height as dd1 who is 8.

I really do feel that if these seats are safer, and have a higher weight limit than our standard seats then we should have the information here in the uk as well. even if i produce another giuant like dd2, at least this baby can stay rearfacing till 28lb this time.

FAQ, Pinktulips, fair enough. You're aware that there's a safer alternative but don't think it would suit you...that's fine. But do you think that it's OK for parents/carers not even to be made aware that safer products exist? Surely we should expect legislation to be up to date on something like this?

Pixie - you don't have legislation to bring something to greater awareness. Are you asking for legisaltion banning FF carseats for under 4s or are you asking for a pro-active advertising campaign led by the Government on the benefits of RF car seats? I would support the latter but oppose the former.

Pro-active ad. campaign by the government would do for me too.

But, and I may have got this wrong, if the government take on board all the findings supporting RF, wouldn't it contradict their current advice which recommends FF at 9kg? Therefore, on the one hand they can let people know what's safer, but then say it's OK to put childrens lives at risk anyway?? That's the reason I assumed legislation would have to change??? (I hate the idea of parents not being able to make their own informed choices too).

In Norway it has been advised to keep the kids RF since at least 1998, still only 1 of 3 children RF past 1 year old. In Sweden they have adviced the parents about RF in over 25 years there 90% sits RF up till four years. Do you really think all the Swedish parents would have done so if their children were in pain RF?

Doesn't it effect any of you to read that 6 out of 8 children killed in car accidents(in England) researched in this study would have been saved if RF?

I think it is ridiculous to utter things about the children being uncomfortable if you haven't even tried it(even though I know that most haven't got the chance, yet..)But do not tell people how bad it is for childrens comfort when you really haven't got a clue.

MissHH, i think you are a bit of an expert on this aerent you? what is the concord ultimax like?

Its beyond me that if you lucky enough to know something which can make your child a lot safer in traffic, your first instinct is to find arguments against it

To suggest that Scandinavian cars differ from cars in the UK is just daft. We drive the same car brands in Sweden as in the UK. Some are big, some are small, but as missHH said, RF is standard in Sweden and the seats fit all the cars, big or small. There is no research to suggest that children would be more car sick rear facing. Either you are car sick or you are not. Apart from children with special needs of one kind or another, children are not uncomfortable or unhappy in RF seats. You have to remember that we are talking about proper Group 1 car seats here, not some sort of extended infant seats. RF group 1 seats are as high up as FF seats, the child can see out the window, can interact with other passengers in the back (older siblings for example), you can see the child in little mirrors. On the whole, this debate always seems to turn into an attitude issue, rather than a safety issue. But to concentrate on the OP and the issue at stake, we can simplify the issue to this:

There are currently 2 products on the market. Product A is 5 times safer than product B. Which product would you buy for your child, product A or product B? It is as simple as that.

"Doesn't it effect any of you to read that 6 out of 8 children killed in car accidents(in England) researched in this study would have been saved if RF?"

I think you need to be very careful about making definative statements like this. Would these children definately, definately have lived if they had been RF or just possibley?

I am all for adopting anything which reduces risks, as long as it is practical and reasonable. I really want to read more about this, it concerns me that my children are/have been at risk by travelling forward facing in thier car seats. I struggled to fit two normal forward facing carseats in the back of my car as it is (it's a two seater in the back, not three), I had to put DD2 on the front passenger seat whilst she was in her rear-facing seat as there was no way to actually physically put the small child in the rear facing seat if it was in the back of the car, so rear facing seats basically require that you have back doors on your car, so this means we'd all need bigger cars and so on and so on.....

hmmmmm, I shall be reading up on it some more.

Monkies

The trouble with information like this though is that if the seats are not readily available and comaprably priced then the information will be read now, and forgotten about - as parents can;t actually do much about it.

But for every parent that asks in their local shop, the assistants will put more pressure on their managers to get these seats, and for every shop manager who contacts the manufacturers, the more pressure will be put on said manufacturers to supply these products. For every person who writes to Which magazine to ask for them, the likelihood of these seats being reviewed and tested will increase.
They will never be readily available unless people ask for them and people will not ask for them unless they know that they are out there...

It is possible to get hold of them Hulababy. Online or in-store if you live near Milton Keynes at In car safety or through your Volvo dealer (limited choice).

Once I'd heard about them I couldn't wait for Mothercare/Halfords etc to get their act together but have managed to get one that's right for my car and baby....you don't have to forget about it until they're in the high street.

I know you can get them - ,my point was that they are not readily avaiable and they are not comparibly priced against other car seats.

Britax customer service's told me that UK parents don't want this product which is why they don't market them here! How on earth can parents/carers ask for a product that they don't know exists? Please, if you think UK parents should be at the very least be offered the choice, call them on 01264 386034 and ask for them to supply UK retailers.

missdee: About Concorde Ultimax it didn't do it very well in test neither FF or RF. Only 2.5 point in frontal crash on of a total of 5 possible points.

You can see from the tests here(but it is in German and Norwegian): www.adac.de/Search/SearchResult/RW_HighLight.asp?RWDoc2Show=37886&RWLang=de&RWCollectionID=adac&RWQu ery=Ultimax&RWURL=www.adac.de/Tests/Kindersicherung/Kindersitze/kindersitze_2005/CONCORDUltim ax.asp&RWCookieValue= and forbrukerportalen.no/produkter/5630. On safety the seat has got the mark satisfying and the mark sufficient on how easy it is to install.

But these results was from 2006 and 2005. I do not know of any other test of this seat, maybe they have changed anything on this seat since then?