A website campaign wants the government and manufacturers to recommend rear-facing car seats for children beyond the age of one. What do you think?
Should parents in the UK be encouraged to keep their children in rear-facing car seats for longer? Yes, according to a campaign launched by Motors.co.uk.
It is calling on the government, retailers and manufacturers to make it easier for parents to research and buy rear-facing seats for children aged one and over, which it suggests are "up to five times safer" than the more popular forward-facing versions. The headlines from this research do suggest that rear-facing seats are the safest option.
In the UK, group 0 and 0+ seats for babies up to the age of 18 months or 13kg in weight will be rear-facing, but most of the larger seats on the market are forward-facing. Many large retailers do not stock rear-facing seats for older children, and parents who do buy them tend to have gone out of their way to do so, seeking out specialist sites such as the In Car Safety Centre.
When Motors.co.uk spoke to parents, 52% said they would buy a rear-facing car seat for their child if they were more widely available in the UK, while 43% called for the UK government to officially advise parents to keep their child in a rear-facing seat until the age of four.
I'm slightly sceptical about this. When I attended a fitting day in October as part of our car seat campaign, I found that parents were keen to get their children into forward-facing seats as quickly as possible, with some moving them up before the child turned one. Most seemed to think their children were bored with looking at the back seat.
Yet elsewhere parents use rear-facing carseats for much longer. In some European countries parents are advised to use them until a child is four years old, while guidance in the US suggests using rear-facing seats until a child turns two. And most of the manufacturers we are familiar with in the UK are making these seats for the overseas market.
So why don't we use them? Road safety expert Julie Dagnall has seen rear-facing seats as part of her job with Wirall council. She says part of the problem is that many of them do not fit the kind of cars we drive in the UK, and a lack of availability means they are more expensive. She adds: "You're still going to do very well with a forward-facing seat if the seat is fitted properly and the child is fitted properly in it."
However, she thinks the campaign is right to suggest that parents do not always get the advice they need to make an informed decision. As Which? recently discovered in a mystery-shopping exercise retailers are not always giving the best advice, and while new parents are inundated by sponsored leaflets on subjects from nappy rash to weaning, most are given very little on car seats.
But there is information out there: the website Rear Facing has links to reports and research, plus information on where you can buy the seats ? but parents do need to actively seek it out.
What do you think? Should more information on rear-facing seats be made available? If you are a parent who is about to buy a child car seat would you consider a rear-facing one? Do you think parents should be forced to do so? If you already use one ? in the UK or overseas ? is not being able to see your child's face an issue?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2012/jan/23/child-car-seats-rear-facing
Neal Ardley Stan Collymore Liza Minnelli Peter Beardsley David Beckham Peter Atherton
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