When Fintan McPhillips from Clones, Co Monaghan, went looking for a family car that could take his three children in child seats in the rear he had no idea just how difficult his search was going to be.
After five weeks he had learned the extent to which many motor manufacturers ignore important issues of child safety and offer either limited or insufficient protection.
McPhillips looked at several well-known models but soon realised very few of them could even accommodate the three child seats for his five-year-old son, three-year-old daughter and 11-month-old baby girl.
"We had a Nissan Primera that had three full seat belts in the rear but it could not accommodate the three child seats," he says. "When I began looking for an alternative I was really surprised that there was so much out there to chose from but few that could meet the needs of someone who needed three child seats in the back."
McPhillips and others who have contacted Motors are limited in their choice because manufacturers generally assume a maximum of two child seats in a rear seat. Therefore the middle seat is fitted only with a lap belt, which is useless for accommodating a child seat.
Those companies offering MPVs may argue that they have three rows of seats and this can solve the problem. It does, but not satisfactorily. If you find yourself using the third row, you have greatly reduced your boot space.
Parents will find that most cars are either designed for two child seats or, in the case of the MPV, the use of far more space than one might wish to take up. A number of cars, such as the new Renualt Scénic and the Nissan Tino, do actually take the three seats. So does the VW Touran which, having been facilitated with an advance preview of the car by VW distributor MDL, McPhillips eventually bought. "It takes the three seats in the second row perfectly and I was able to bring 120 bottles of wine home from holidays in the boot too," he says.
Some parents take a chance on using the centre lap belt for a "middle" child. They are taking a huge risk by not restricting children to a properly fitted three-point belt. In a recent paper in the Irish Medical Journal, Dr Alan Walsh said he and colleagues were convinced that the use of lap belts and poorly fitting three-point belts expose children to "excessive risk of skeletal and visceral injury in road accidents. We would like to repeat the call for improvements in the design and application of suitable restraints for children and young people in cars".
Ideally, a car should have an ISOFIX (international standard) system fitted for each child seat but some manufacturers don't even have the ISOFIX system fitted to their cars - besides there is international disagreement on the actual standard!
Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents points out that ISOFIX factory-fitted points are still not as common as they should be. If they were, more child seats would be designed with appropriate matching points that would simply click into the points in the seats of the car.
"Most child seats are currently designed to be fitted using a car's adult lap and diagonal seat belt (or sometimes, just a lap belt)," the society warns. "However, car seats, seat belts and anchorages vary dramatically between different models.
"Car seats have different shapes. Some seat belts are much shorter than others. The position of the anchor points differs so some are further forward than others. All of these factors make it virtually impossible to make a child seat that fits all cars."
So, you may find the car to accommodate your needs but are you carrying your children as safely as you should ? Perhaps not.
Fintan McPhillips solved his problem of trying to get three seats into a rear row of seats but an agreed ISOFIX system extended for three seats would ensure that neither he nor any other customer would have to go through his experience again.
Car manufacturers can be slow to react to changing demands from motorists but customers should consider contacting the distributors of the car to pass on their views or criticisms, so that they might be passed on to the manufacturing team. (All cars are imported either by franchise companies or subidiaries of the parent company - check the Yellow Pages.)
Child safety is one area to which manufacturers need to pay more attention. Not all of us can afford a Volvo or Saab which has been designed with safety as a major component of the overall design.
In the meantime the customer has to continue to shop around to find what they need from a limited choice. We would invite distributors' views on the suitability of their cars for carrying three child seats without, in the case of MPVs, taking up all of the remaining boot space. Fintan McPhillips is not alone.