Study Calls for Better Child Passenger Protection - CHOICE # 413

The Consumer Council calls for a government review of the current legislation with a view to enhancing safeguards for child passengers in private cars.

Under the Road Traffic (Safety Equipment) Regulations, toddlers of age 2 or below are required to be secured in approved child car seats when riding in the front passenger seat.

For children in the front passenger seat who are older than two years of age, and those who are in the back seat where the use of child car seat is not mandatory, they are thus left vulnerable should they be involved in a car crash, given that adult seat belt may not fit the child properly to provide the best protection.

And the common practice of holding children in the arms or on the parent's lap, without having a child seat for them, may do more harm to the children than protecting them in car crashes.

In a fatal car crash which happened in August 2010, a 9-month-old baby was killed while he was held in the mother's arms. The mother, sitting in the back seat and strapped to a seat belt, was only slightly injured.

The upward trend in the number of casualties involving young passengers of private vehicles in recent years is equally worrying. Statistics from the Transport Department showed that there were 173 passengers of age 14 or below who had been injured or killed while travelling in private cars in 2010, up from 168 in 2008 and 170 in 2009.

An even steeper rise in the number of casualties is reported in the 0 to 4 years age group, which the figure rose about 16% from 63 in 2009 to 73 in 2010, and for 5 to 9 years age group, the number of casualties increased 12% from 50 in 2009 to 56 in 2010.

In view of the alarming rate, the Consumer Council therefore called for a review of the existing requirements on children travelling in child car seats in a bid to improve protection for child passengers. Hong Kong is found to provide weaker protection when compared to some other developed jurisdictions.

In Japan, the government requires children younger than 6 to ride in a child car seat when travelling in private cars; in Britain, children under age 12 must be restrained in child car seats unless they are 135 cm or above tall. In Austria, the requirements are even more stringent: the laws mandate that children under age 14 and shorter than 150 cm be restrained to a child car seat when travelling in private vehicles.

While the use of child car seat ensures better protection for child passengers, consumers are advised to check out the performance of the 19 models tested in the study, with prices ranging from HK$ 799 to HK$ 4,900, in terms of their safety and ease of use.

In the test, it was found that 4 out of the 19 child car seat models can apply the ISOFIX installation method without the need to use car seat belt.

The ISOFIX method is much less complicated than the traditional installation method, which only requires the snap connection of a child car seat to be latched onto the anchor points in the car, reducing the risk of incorrect installation.

The March issue of CHOICE magazine offers some advice for consumers:

• When choosing a child car seat, parents should look for a type that is suitable in terms of their children's weight and build rather than their age.
• Adults should not hold children in their arms or share the same seat belt with children when travelling in a car.
• Lateral-facing child car seats in the design of carrycot installed across the rear seat should always be fitted with the baby's head near the center of the vehicle, in order to avoid a direct blow to the baby's head in a side crash.
• Studies show that rear-facing child car seats provide better protection for children than forward-facing child car seats, but they should not be installed in a front passenger seat with airbag.
• Always follow the instructions for the installation of the child car seat.