Make sure your children are sitting pretty… safely!

Somerset County Council’s road safety team are urging parents and carers to ensure their children travel in correctly sized and fitted car seats.

 A recent survey carried out by the consumer magazine Which? and Good Egg Safety, a leading UK in-car child safety initiative, found that almost 90% of retailers weren’t asking consumers the key safety questions necessary to make certain the child car seat being bought was suitable for their child.

Legally children must normally use a child car seat until they are 12 years old or 135 centimetres tall, whichever comes first. A car seat will help to protect a child in the event of a collision, but if it’s the wrong size or has been incorrectly fitted it won’t and this could lead to serious injury or worse.

Good egg safety believe it should be mandatory for retailers to use a safety checklist to make sure that key safety information is passed on.

Important questions should be asked by the retailer including checking on the child’s weight, height and age, what vehicle is being used, and whether the car seat is going to be used in more than one vehicle. It’s also recommended that the retailer provide a demonstration on how to install the child car seat correctly.

To help ensure parents and carers know what questions a retailer should be asking Good Egg Safety have produced a handy ‘Retailer Safety Assessment Form’ that can be downloaded from their website.

 Councillor John Woodman, Somerset County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, said: “We all want to do the very best we can to keep our children safe, and by simply downloading the safety assessment form and checking that the right questions are being asked when purchasing a new child car seat it’s possible to ensure that you have done the best you can to protect your children.”

 For more information on child car seats visit: www.goodeggcarsafety.com

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