Booster seat on coach for reception school trip?

[Maybeitsok]

My just turned 5 year old is going on a school trip soon via busy dual carriageway to another city, journey time approx 45 min each way. They are still in a rear facing car seat with me, which is all they know, and how they will continue until they outgrow it at 36kg or 125cm tall. They’re currently only 16kg and 107cm!

Anyway, I was reluctant to let them go on the coach but have decided to do so but with a booster seat, so I’ve bought a carry on portable one that’ll be easy enough to use.

Thing is, they’ve asked if it’s just them that’ll have this kind of seat, and it probably will be, since people aren’t that clued up on car seat safety it seems.

Has anyone else sent their 4/5 year old with a booster before? I’m fearful they’ll be ridiculed but then again not sure considering their age. Safety first in my opinion, but want them
happy too.

But it’s your child, you can ask them. My six and seven year olds told me they were very comfortable, and the six year old told me when he wasn’t any more (1 kg below the seat’s limit but he said his shoulders were getting squashed) and we changed the seat. He says rear facing was more comfortable because he had somewhere to put his feet. Children don’t sit like adults.

I’m talking specifically about school trips, as this is the topic of the thread. Skiing is obviously very different, though if I thought my children weren’t safe enough with the instructor, I wouldn’t send them. I found a lost child skiing a few weeks ago and there were so many people around to help, I genuinely don’t think it’s necessary. If the child is in a ravine somewhere, the tag won’t work anyway as it needs a phone close by.

I sometimes see a group of children from a private nursery taking a short trip on an ordinary service bus. There are two adults. 6 children (I think) all in his vis and they have a hand holding thing for when they get off. They go and visit a partner nursery in the ssame own so they can play somewhere different and, yes, experience the bus. It's lovely to hear them chatting to the staff and pointing out landmarks. They are getting a lot of out of it including 'getting used to the bus' but no doubt the OP wouldn't have let her child go.

Sounds very cute. My ds is 4 and has been getting the bus with us since he was 2. He loves it. It never occurred me to be worried

Wait what? You purposefully avoid bus journeys in favour of driving your personal vehicle so you can use a car seat? Your child’s safety is important of course but I would hope everyone aims to reduce their reliance on personal driving if there’s a public transport option. Fair enough if there isn’t but if you can take a bus everyone should really try to so there’s an actual planet to hand down to the next generations. And yes, the earlier children are used to taking the bus or tram or subway the better so that when they grow up it is second nature.

In 32 years of driving I’ve never been involved in one. I believe that less than 0.22 of the population are involved in accidents in any given year. That’s pretty rare.

Do you drive a white car? What make and model is it? These factors, along with choice of car seat can make a significant difference to the likelihood of being involved in an accident as well as the severity.

It feels as if you are focusing in on one small part of the overall picture and your anxiety comes across in your posts.

Seriously is it that low for number of accidents per year?
Does that include the average 'daft bump'?

Touch wood I've never been involved in a bad accident, that involved airbags, tow trucks or ambulances.
But I seem to have had more than my fair share of 'daft bumps' where the bumpers have done their job, but still costs money to fix.

That’s a reach.

Car crashes are not considered “rare” by any stretch of the imagination.

No I don’t feel attacked but thanks for your balanced post. My point was more around one day let the kid go on the bus with their friends.

I guess it only includes ‘daft bumps’ that were officially reported.

Have you had many? I’ve had none and DH has had 1 in the 27 years that we’ve been together.

This makes interesting reading. I’ve only really skimmed it but you can easily pick up that motorcycles are statistically more likely to be involved in accidents and motorways aren’t significantly more dangerous www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2022/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2022

No I have looked at pics and researched it - still like uncomfortable to me. That’s my opinion, you are welcome to yours. Doesn’t make either of us wrong. So no jokes on opinions.

But rear facing doesn't prevent a car crash. Not getting in a car is the only way to prevent crashing in one.

The rare disaster I was referring to was a severe enough car crash where being in a rear facing car seat would make the difference between life and death.

For the odd mild prang, which is the majority of adverse incidents, it wouldn't make a difference if your child is in a HBB or rear facing etc. It is only in rare disasters, really severe crashes, where that'd make a difference.

Like I said in my earlier post, there are many rare disasters that could possibly befall your child. But becoming obsessed with all of these is almost guaranteed to affect your child for the worse, by restricting their activities day-to-day.

I don't know why I'm bothering to explain though because I think you have a fixed mindset about this.

Car accidents are far more common I think then people would like to think and is fairly high up on cause of death.

coach accidents are rarer though

as I said it is a balance and only the OP can work out what it is. That said my 12 year old sits in the front of the car

Thats not true. Rear facing is beneficial even in minor accidents. I did a lot of reading about this when we decided to rear face and if you look for yourself then you’ll see the same.

This wasn’t meant to be a debate about rear facing car seats in any case.

No indeed, but you keep citing rear facing vs front facing as your reason for wanting to use a booster on the coach. I and other commenters keep telling you that a) coaches and buses are nothing like cars for crash severity due to their mass and b) quoting stats for relative risk misleads people about absolute risk.

Car seat manufacturers deliberately quote relative risks to spook parents into buying their product. Yes, it is marginally safer, but no, it is not worth getting obsessed about.

That’s not true either. I never compared them!

Due to the nature of my original post, many have raised their issues with rear facing beyond 15 months here and it’s gone from there.

Im not trying to install a rear facing car seat on the coach, am I! Or even a car seat for that matter.

I have a 4.5 yo only 97 cm tall. She's been on the buses and trains a few times since 2.5 -3 never worried about accidents.
She's rear facing in my car seat but forward facing in my partners. Different seats mine she's still comfy rear facing but from being about 2.5 it was difficult to get her in and out whilst rear facing. We were pragmatic about it but only use this car seat occasionally. She's not been in it in the last probably 6+ weeks and the most she's used it is once or twice a week for a 10 minute journey. If we are doing a long journey in my partner's car we put my seat in and where possible for short journeys we use my car. It's usually just the odd time my partner does the pick up on his way home from work without time to drop the car at home first and walk back with her. For what it's worth she sits with her legs crossed and squished up whether she is forward or rear facing!

She's due to go on a school trip in a couple of weeks and it never crossed my mind to send her with a car seat. Boosters aren't currently an option as she's only 97cm.

My 4 year old rear faces because we have a Joie 360 and why not but actually I've found it very difficult to find much decent reading on the subject. You see the same facts repeated but the subject matter has become an echo chamber and it's very hard to move beyond the Facebook groups and research carried out by rear facing seat sellers themselves.

I've been driving nearly 50 years and never been in one 🤷‍♀️ not to mention all the years being driven about by other people.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1460408618755811

www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=extended-rear-facing-the-safest-way-for-kids-to-ride-88-p10989

Oh they must not happen then! 🙄

I didn't say that.

Speak to the school. It won’t be possible for staff to carry around 30+ booster seats all day if the bus doesn’t allow them to be left on the bus so it may not even be an option.

As a teacher of young children who I’ve taken on many trips over the years I’ve never taken a booster seat. The child would need to be able to carry it onto and off the bus themselves.

It would also be good to get some actual research on the effect of rear facing on other passengers, particularly the front passenger whos likely to have pulled their seat closer to the dash board particularly in your average UK sized car.

Lots of research seems to come from Sweden and the USA who on average drive bigger cars than ths UK

And does the weight of the car make a difference, esp as electric cars are much heavier than combustion cars.

But the first is £32 unless you have access, usually through a university. The second contains no data. That's what I mean by proper information not being particularly easy to find.