There are dramatically fewer fatal car crashes involving children, but rates can still improve, writes NEIL BRISCOE
FATAL CRASHES involving children in cars have dropped by 46 per cent, according to a study to be released next week. Conducted by the Children’s University Hospital, the Road Safety Authority and the Royal College Of Surgeons, the study found that between 2000 and 2008 the figures surrounding child-related deaths in car crashes fell dramatically.
Despite the improvement, there are still calls to further improve child car safety, and this week the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that children should be kept in rear-facing car seats until the age of two, rather than one, as is common now.
“Parents often look forward to transitioning from one stage to the next, but these transitions should generally be delayed until they’re necessary, when the child fully outgrows the limits for his or her current stage,” said Dr Dennis Durbin of the AAP. “A rear-facing child safety seat does a better job of supporting the head, neck and spine of infants and toddlers in a crash, because it distributes the force of the collision over the entire body.” Previously, the AAP had recommended that rear-facing seats be used until the age of one, or until a child reached 9kg in weight.
But such regulations are being dismissed by Irish experts as unnecessary. Brian Farrell, the communications director with the Road Safety Authority (RSA), is advising parents not to rush out and start buying rear-facing seats.
“The first thing to note is that the way child seats are built and used in the US is completely different from how we do it in the EU or Ireland,” says Farrell. “In fact, you couldn’t use a US-made child seat here, as it wouldn’t have been crash tested to tougher European standards. The basic point of delaying a child’s transition from rear-facing to front facing is something we would agree with, but what we would say is don’t compromise their safety by putting them in a seat that’s not right for them. It’s all down to height and weight.
“Actually, the biggest danger to children in cars is from side impacts, so it’s most important, for infants, toddlers and older children, to make sure that their seats are providing them with proper side-impact protection.”
One of the authors of the Irish study, Prof Alf Nicholson from the department of paediatrics at the Children University Hospital in Dublin, agrees. “I think, obviously, the Americans have their own national data, but it is definitely better to stay in a rear-facing seat for as long as possible.
“We have been very successful in reducing fatal accidents and we are making genuine progress but we still fall down in relation to child restraints in cars where compliance is still below 80 per cent.”
Andrew Ratcliffe, managing director of Dorel UK, a major child car seat maker, says that European regulations will change, but won’t be as strict as what is being proposed in America. “Work is being done in Europe to extend keeping children in rear-facing seats until they are about 15-months, but that won’t come in until late 2012.
“It’s always a compromise between providing ultimate safety and making the seats easy and convenient to use, and we want to focus on making sure that the seats are appropriate and fitted properly. The more complicated the seats become, the greater the chances of them not being used properly.”
Currently, the law in Ireland requires that any child under the age of three must use a car safety seat, but there is no stricture on what type of seat. Rear-facing seats are not allowed in the front of a car unless the airbag can be deactivated and seats must conform to EU or UN standards.
