Blog contributed by Rob Newman, Director of the Australian Child Restraint Resource Initiative (ACRI).
So you think your child’s safety seat may be incorrect?
Passenger safety is easy in theory, but our road travelling community is often incorrectly influenced by perceptions of what is safe and what isn’t. This can seriously disadvantage parents and carers when making safe use decisions for their children.
How can you tell what to look for?
In general terms, misperceptions of what constitutes risks to safety are where all misuse practices begin. ACRI is confronted with this challenge everyday across all manner of community exposures and workplaces. To help address this challenge at least two key perspectives need to be clarified.
Although a variety of marketing messages revolve around the child’s age and comfort factors, best practices reflect something else.
Once we have these factors clear we can focus on what matters most, which involves two areas: Attachment to the vehicle and the correct daily use.
Monitoring all above aspects are always required for ‘every trip’.
For some families there are a number of challenges that may make the above activities difficult to achieve. Not all Child Car Safety Seats are easy to use, even the instructions can be difficult to interpret. In addition, many vehicles also contribute additional difficulties to daily use requirements.
In all cases the theory above may not be easy to achieve. If at any time you experience difficulty when following the above guidelines always seek professional assistance. It’s a service provider’s job to ensure that your day to day activities are as easy to perform as possible as in this realm, ease of use is safety.
*Always refer to the manufacturers instructions
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