Don't Play With Your Child's Life
You Magazine – 18 October 2001, pg. 60

Parents who allow children to sit on their laps while they're driving are dicing with death. The law requires child passengers to be restrained and you're risking your child's life if you ignore it!

No sensible parents would allow a toddler to play with a loaded gun; nor would they leave a baby alone in the bath while they watch TV. Yet too many people put their little children's lives at risk every day by irresponsibly driving around with them on their laps.
They're dicing with death even if the child is secured with a standard seatbelt on the front passenger seat of the car. And there's no more dangerous place for a child than on mom or dad's lap behind the steering wheel, no matter how carefully or slowly they drive and even if it's a short trip to the local shops.
Consider the following facts, backed by research:
"Research shows most traffic accidents occur within 40 km of the home and at speeds of less than 70 km/h.
"And there's a horrifying reality: if while driving you collide at only 50 km/h with a stationary object the sudden deceleration causes the mass of any object in the car to increase 30 times. For instance, at the moment of impact a baby weighing only 10 kg acquires a mass of 300 kg!
In the fraction of a second after impact the baby is torn from its mother's arms and hurled with devastating force against the car's dashboard or windscreen – usually headfirst because a baby's head is relatively heavy compared with the rest of its body, so it accelerates faster.
It’s even worse if the child is secured by a standard seatbelt on the driver's lap because the driver's mass also increases thirty fold. In the moment of impact a 60 kg person develops a mass of 1500 kg, which means the child is crushed against the seatbelt by a mass of 1,5 tons!
The result is death or crippling injury – and a sense of blame and guilt that will haunt the driver for ever. And it's all caused by ignorance, negligence and irresponsibility that can be avoided.
Statistics show that fatal accidents can occur at speeds as slow as 20 km/h and if the driver merely brakes hard, children, especially babies, can be thrown about inside a car.
South African law requires the driver and front-seat passengers to wear seatbelts (it's not yet compulsory for rear-seat passengers), yet the law is widely ignored. And even some more responsible drivers who insist on the use of seatbelts don't ensure their children are secured by appropriate seatbelts or in special children's seats.
A survey conducted at Pretoria nursery schools by the CSIR's National Institute of Transport and Road Research found that only one per cent of all children traveling in cars were properly secured. Of the children driven to nursery schools by their mothers, 27.3 percent were placed on the front passenger seat without being secured by a seat belt. The remainders were usually driven around on the back seat – also without seatbelts.
The law requires babies to be secured in an approved child seat, but too many people are ignorant of the law or ignore it, or the laws aren't strictly enforced.
Most developed countries have measures in place to protect children on the road. In 50 American states toddlers must be secured in child seats and French law prohibits children younger than 10 from travelling in the front seat. In Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Russia the minimum age is 12 and in Norway it's 15.
Up to 500 children younger than 15 die on SA's roads every year and some 4000 are injured, many so seriously they're crippled for life.
Long-term research in America and Britain has shown seatbelts can reduce the number of the child deaths in vehicle-related accidents by up to 70 per cent. A British survey revealed only 10 per cent of children under 5 were secured in a child seat, but none of that group who'd been involved in traffic accidents had been injured. By contrast, only 13 per cent of children younger than five who had not been restrained escaped injury when involved in car accidents.
Toddlers are particularly vulnerable to injury in collisions because the mass of a young child's head in relation to its body causes the child to be hurled headfirst. The head absorbs the impact when the child hits an object – the windscreen or dashboard for example – which can easily cause fatal brain injuries.
But the need for safety precautions doesn't apply only to very young children. All child passengers need to be secured in their seats in some way, not only for their own safety but also for their parent's safety. A child sitting unsecured in the back seat becomes a missile in a collision and can strike the front occupants in the back with devastating effect. In a 50 km/h collision a child with a mass of 30 kg turns into a 900 kg mass slamming into the driver or front passenger.
British research shows that up to six percent of all adult fatalities in collisions are from injuries sustained from the impact of passengers in the back seat. In most cases the front occupant's neck or back is broken.
It reinforces the need for everyone in a car to buckle up, from the tiniest baby to the most solid adult.

There’s a wide choice of child safety seats, harnesses, restraints and booster seats for various ages and sizes.
Products by local manufacturers such as Asti and Safeway carry the SABS mark of approval, while some important equipment such as the popular Chicco seats also adhere to rigorous SABS and international standards.
But be warned: not all imported child restraints are equally safe, The German motoring publication Auto Motor and Sport in conjunction with UTV and the University of Heidelberg comprehensively tested child safety equipment – and only four out of 14 child safety seats tested met the required safety standards. One of those that passed with full marks is the Chicco Synthesis which is available in South Africa.
Child safety equipment isn't cheap (prices range from R300 to R1 500) but should you measure your child's safety in terms of money? The price difference between various items doesn't necessarily mean one is safer than another but applies rather to the ease with which restraints can be carried, installed and removed.
Various motor manufacturers, such as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi, Saab and Volvo, supply their own branded child seats and restraints. In Volvos the child seat forms part of the rear seat.

Some things to consider with regard to children's safety and comfort in a car
The child seat with the two curved metal hooks which fit over the backrest of the car seat can't be regarded as safety equipment. All that keeps the baby in place is the thin metal frame in front and the pieces of material through which the legs are inserted. This can't restrain a mass of up to 400 kg.
A carrycot should be kept in the boot. Although there are restraints that allow one to secure the cot on the rear of the car the child remains at risk. The cot may be secured but the baby isn't. In a collision the child may be flung out of the cot, or be injured because it isn't secured within the cot.
Safe and comfortable child seats with five-point fastenings are available. They can be attached to front or rear passenger seats. To keep the baby comfortable the seat can be placed in such a way the child can see its mother.
When buying a child seat or other form of restraint consider the child's mass rather than age. Buy the apparatus which can be most firmly anchored to the car's seat, body or existing seatbelts.
Many older cars don't have proper safety belts in the rear, only lap belts which fasten around the hips but not across the shoulder. If you value your child's safety you'll avoid such cars or insist on proper seatbelts fitted.
It's preferable not to buy a second-hand child seat unless you're certain it has never been in an accident.
Make sure the restraint you buy has a quick-release function. In an emergency you may need to remove your child quickly.
Never secure your child with an adult seatbelt. The belt will stretch across the child's throat, not the shoulder and chest. In a collision this could break a child's neck or decapitate him. There's also a danger of the child slipping out of the seatbelt if it doesn't fit properly – use a booster seat together with the seatbelt. The booster seat fits on top of the seat, allowing the child to sit higher so the seatbelt fits properly across the shoulder and chest and allows a view outside the car.
No individual, and especially not a child, likes to be fastened to a chair for hours on end. Plan rest stops during your journey every hour or two so children can stretch their legs.
Clean seatbelts and other safety equipment with a warm, soapy sponge. Avoid strong cleaning agents and solvents.
Finally, if you have an accident, replace the car's safety belts and airbags and the child seats and restraints.

YOU, 18 October 2001