Is your child's car seat safe?



According to the latest research, most child car seats would not protect your child from injury in a side-impact accident. Linda Shand investigates.

Each year over 200 children under five are seriously injured and a further 21 killed while travelling as passengers in cars. As parents, we do our best to protect our children by buying a good quality car seat, which can cost up to £100. But a recent Automobile Association survey has identified a loophole in child car seat safety.

Legal requirements in the UK set standards for frontal impacts, but no such standards exist to test the seats for a side impact accident. Poor side protection could lead to a child hitting their head against the door-frame, resulting in death or serious injury.

The AA tests, carried out in Germany, examined 25 European car seats, 17 of which are available in the UK. The results were not encouraging. Only two of the seats achieved three stars out of a possible four. Of those tested, the Chicco Shuttle was the only seat available to UK parents that was rated as ‘good’ when it came to side impact. Later this year you should be able to buy the German seat Romer Duo Isofix which also received a good rating and is suitable for a child of 9-18 months.

Andrew Howard of the AA says, ‘We hope the report will give manufacturers the kick they need to start testing their own restraints properly for side impact. This in turn would lead to an overall raising of safety standards, so eventually there would be a side impact standard across Europe just as there is for front impact.’

Shouldn’t we be pushing for safety standards to be raised now?
Car seats are manufactured in Europe as well as the US, so agreeing a set of universal safety tests is difficult and the side impact issue turns out to be only one aspect of the debate on child car seat safety. Recent surveys have shown that 60-80% of car seats are not properly fitted, either due to poor instructions or because there’s a basic incompatibility between child seat and car. In an accident a seat that isn’t properly fitted could move and even slip out of the belt altogether, giving your child little protection.

Car manufacturers are aware of the problems relating to safety and fitting, and they have come up with a universal fitting - the Isofix seat - which doesn’t use the lap and diagonal seat belt but slots into a special fitting device permanently fixed to the seat of the car. (The German made Romer Duo Isofix mentioned earlier uses this system.) These will be the next generation of car seats, but the technology is complicated and it’ll be a while before they’re generally available.

So if you’re about to make this important purchase for your baby, work on the basis that some form of restraint is better than none at all.

Follow our five point plan:

  • Ask your retailer to check the seat you want is compatible with your car and that it can be fitted securely
  • Make sure the seat is the right one for your child’s weight
  • Go for one with clear instructions that you can follow.
  • Does the seat have different harness positions to fit your child and are they easy to adjust?
  • Remember to use the seat every time your child travels.
Find out more about choosing a car seat for your child.