Interesting article in british medical journal about group 1 (eg toddler) rear facing car seats being safer

[luvaduck]

here

FYI

we love our britax 2 way elite - rear facing until age 4. ds loves it too (he gets a great view out the back window), has loads of room and is much safer

Well let's just hope that the UK car seat makers take this on board and make an extended rear facing seat ASAP...failing that, they could just make all the ones they have in Scandinavia readily available here in the UK. Will it happen? Who knows, but it should. Let's hope one of the manufacturers takes some note.

I saw something on the TV about this the other day and it does seem to be the case that all children should have rear facing seats until much older than we first thought. Do you think it should be made a legal requirement if it has such potential to save lives? I think it would be hard to enforce unless it was done over a long period (i.e phase out and illegal by 2012 or something?)

great idea - can't imagine the govt doing it though can you??? wonder if theres a petition about it.

its crazy. britax say they know rear facing is safer but "theres just not the market for them in the Uk"

I'm sure if mothercare/john lewis were to come out and say they are the safest they'd sell heaps.

bump

There was a petition recently (now closed) after ANEC published a similar report, asking the government to change their advice (I think there were a number of suggested changes, the first being to acknowledge that RF Grp 1 seats were a legal option in the UK - current guidelines don't mention them which makes it implicit they're not!). The gist of the reply was "of course we're deeply concerned with child safety and are keeping upto date with all the research in this area. But we don't see the need to change anything at this time". I'll dig out the link to the actual petition & response if anyones interested.

Things are changing - we started looking in spring 08 and couldn't find anything that stayed RF beyond about 13kg. Yet now there are a range of fully fledged RF Grp1 seats available from stores in the UK. Parents also seem to be becoming more aware. What it will take for the government to change things officially, though, I really don't know .

(Oh, and another favourite quote from a well known UK manufacturer is that "UK parents prefer the colour options on our forward facing seats". Obviously an insurmountable problem [hmmm])

at preferring the colour options!

I have never ever bought a seat for the colour - I think that lots of places that sell car seats - eg john lewis just stock one colour of a particular car seat anyway so I have never needed to choose. I wouldn't care anyway, I want my kids to be safe!

last bump (honest)

As a retailer we find that parents want to change car seats from rear facing to forward facing much too soon. A traditional infant carrier can usually take up 13kg which is approx 28lb which can usually take you well past the 12 months stage but a lot of parents feel they are too big at this stage. As long as the childs head does not come beyond the top of the seat they are perfectly safe in the group 0+ car seat even if the legs do protrude from the edge. If you do wish to purchase a rear ward facing seat that will stay in your car and give the child more room look at the Britax First Class Plus (will take up to 13kg rear facing and you can then turn around)

We feel that people need to be taught more about the benefits of rear ward facing seats and hopefully demand will start to grow for the manufacturers.

interesting babyguds. however this study showed that its safest to carry toddlers up to 4 rear facing, and I think demand IS starting to grow for these seats. There has been a lot in the news recently so awareness is increasing.

the retailers that stock these rearfacing setas (eg britax two way elite, recaro polaric etc) for example the milton keynes in car safety centre, have found there is lots of demand.

Why not get ahead of the game and start stocking them yourselves???

More info at rearfacing.co.uk