There's nothing more valuable in your car than your child - and your child seat, says SANDRA O'CONNELL
Driving with a baby on board can be fraught at the best of times, particularly if they are newborns. If they are upset, it is simply impossible to concentrate on the road.
If they are too quiet the tendency is to adjust the rear view mirror or, worse still, look over your shoulder, to make sure they are okay.
The real worry for parents however is whether or not their baby seat is actually secured properly. This can be a more difficult task to ascertain than it might seem and the fear is that the only way of knowing for sure is in an emergency - which is obviously too late.
The dangers for children travelling in cars is significant. In the first two months of this year alone four children, all travelling as car passengers, died in motor accidents. Provisional figures from the National Safety Council (NSC) show that last year, 20 child passengers were killed. In 2000, some 879 children were injured in road accidents and of these, 573 were car passengers. That year eight child passengers died.
By law, children of all ages must either be in a child seat or wear a seat belt. Babies or children under four years must always use an appropriate child restraint - typically a customised babyseat - while children of four years and upwards must use an appropriate child restraint such as a booster seat or a seat belt. The only exception to the restraint rule in the rear is where the number of children exceeds the number of rear seat belts or car seats.
Given the injury and fatality statistics, the NSC warns that this should be avoided if at all possible. Without an appropriate restraint any accident or sudden braking situation could result in the child being hurled forward into or between the seats, be thrown through the windscreen or against the gear stick or the dashboard.
Less than 10 years ago, car seats were routinely brought to mechanics for bolting into the floor of the car. This posed its own problems.
I know of one instance where a childminder had such a seat, which was used by her charge on a daily basis. It was only four years later, when she had to remove the rear seat to retrieve a lost object, that she discovered the person fitting it had merely wedged the anchor straps under the seat.
Nowadays car seats are typically restrained by the car's own seat belts. The option for parents is to buy either a forward facing car seat for use in the back of the car, or, increasingly, a rearward facing car seat for use on the front passenger seat. For newborns, the most commonly found seats are for use in the front. However, if you have a passenger airbag fitted in your car, any impact which results in the airbag being activated could prove fatal to the baby. All car buyers, especially those buying second-hand cars for which the full spec may be unknown, should ensure exactly where their airbags, if any, are located and whether they are armed or not.
Where there are two adults in a car with a distressed child, the instinct may be for the non-driving parent to sit in the back with them. However, a child should not be restrained in one seat belt with an adult, the NSC warns, as this poses its own dangers. Indeed the NSC is currently running a television campaign where one, unrestrained adult causes the deaths of the other occupants in a car.
"Seat belts are designed to fit one person only," it says, "under no circumstances should two people wear one seat belt."