education pt.2

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Following on from the discussion I had with a friend recently about the
efficacy of cycle helmets, I now discover that her young son does not
travel in an appropriate child seat in the car.

Words fail me at the moment, but I shall find a few choice ones for next
time I speak to her.

d.

Don't lose sleep over it, it's her problem after all, not yours.

--
Mark (MSA)
This post is packaged by intellectual weight, not volume. Some settling
of contents may have occurred during transmission

MSA said:

Don't lose sleep over it, it's her problem after all, not yours.

If she's taking my son out for the day I consider it very much my problem.

d.

davek said:

MSA said:

Don't lose sleep over it, it's her problem after all, not yours.

If she's taking my son out for the day I consider it very much my
problem.
d.

You mean that you'd still let her take your son in her car, without
appropriate restraints?

Pete.

Peter Connolly said:

You mean that you'd still let her take your son in her car, without
appropriate restraints?

No, of course not. Well, not knowingly anyway. He has a booster seat
that goes with him whenever he goes by car, whether it's our car or
someone else's.

To be honest, I'm not too clear where the law stands with this one.

As far as I know, the law says that "appropriate" restraints must be
used for children "if fitted", but the point is that the adult seatbelts
fitted in the rear of most cars aren't really appropriate for children,
which is why a booster seat is necessary. But if the booster seat isn't
"fitted", is it legally required?

In any case, the point is that unless I am mistaken (in which case
someone please correct me), child restraints in cars have a much
stronger track record for saving life/preventing injury than cycle
helmets, which is the root cause of my annoyment, given this friend's
pro-helmet views.

d.

davek said:

Peter Connolly said:

You mean that you'd still let her take your son in her car, without
appropriate restraints?

No, of course not. Well, not knowingly anyway. He has a booster seat
that goes with him whenever he goes by car, whether it's our car or
someone else's.

Sounds sensible.

Quoted message said:

To be honest, I'm not too clear where the law stands with this one.

As far as I know, the law says that "appropriate" restraints must be
used for children "if fitted", but the point is that the adult
seatbelts fitted in the rear of most cars aren't really appropriate
for children, which is why a booster seat is necessary. But if the
booster seat isn't "fitted", is it legally required?

no. From the RoSPA website:

Appropriate child restraint must be worn if available. If not, an
adult seat belt must be worn if available

Quoted message said:

In any case, the point is that unless I am mistaken (in which case
someone please correct me), child restraints in cars have a much
stronger track record for saving life/preventing injury than cycle
helmets, which is the root cause of my annoyment, given this friend's
pro-helmet views.

It would seem so. 35 children under 11 were killed in car crashes in
2002. 16 of these were under 4. 6% of under 4 year olds travel
unrestrained.

Total car occupant deaths were about 1700 (couldn't find an exact
figure, but that's from a government summary), so if more than 2% of
cars contain under 11 year olds, then the death rate is lower. I don't
know where to find figures for that, and also it's worth noting that
4-11 year old children are pretty resilient compared to adults, so
they're better able to recover, and the under 4 year old figures look
quite scary to me.

A
(sorry, lost the sources over my lunch break)

Ambrose Nankivell said:

Appropriate child restraint must be worn if available. If not, an
adult seat belt must be worn if available

....

Quoted message said:

It would seem so. 35 children under 11 were killed in car crashes in
2002. 16 of these were under 4. 6% of under 4 year olds travel
unrestrained.

I don't suppose you know the answer to this, but I'd be interested to
find out:

a) how many deaths/injuries were to children using adult seatbelts
rather than appropriate child restraints.
b) how many deaths/injuries were to children using appropriate restraints.

Of course, as with cycle helmets, the difficulty in saying An
Appropriate Child Restraint Saved My Life is that you don't know what
would have happened if you hadn't been using one.

On the other hand, I'm sure all those crash test dummies didn't die in vain.

Perhaps I should cross-post this to one of the motoring groups. 😉

d.

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

If she's taking my son out for the day I consider it very much my problem.

d.

Ah, in that scenario I would totally agree.

--
Mark (MSA)
This post is packaged by intellectual weight, not volume. Some settling
of contents may have occurred during transmission

davek said:

As far as I know, the law says that "appropriate" restraints must be
used for children "if fitted", but the point is that the adult seatbelts
fitted in the rear of most cars aren't really appropriate for children,
which is why a booster seat is necessary. But if the booster seat isn't
"fitted", is it legally required?

The HC (table under rule 75, rule 76 is also relevant) states that for a
child aged 3 to 11 and under 1.5m in height an appropriate child
restraint MUST be worn if available. This is the responsibility of the
driver.

If you have provided a booster seat then it would be hard to argue that
one wasn't available. OTOH, a booster seat isn't actually a restraint...

--
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine