The Council is once again running its hugely successful and popular in car safety child car seat clinics in a bid to keep young people safe.
This initiative raises awareness among parents, grandparents and carers about the dangers to young children of incorrectly fitted or inappropriate child car seats.
As part of the campaign, Bath & North East Somerset Council will hold a car seat clinic on Tuesday, 19th August at KRFC, Keynsham from 9am to 4.30pm.
Parents can have their child car seats checked for safety by experts and hear more about in-car child safety from the Child Seat Safety experts.
Councillor Caroline Roberts (Lib-Dem, Newbridge), the Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport, said: “We strongly urge anyone with responsibility for carrying children in their car to learn more about this vital issue by getting their child car seats checked out by experts at our clinic for complete peace of mind.
“It’s a startling fact that an unrestrained child passenger can suffer fatal injuries in a collision at less than 5mph.
“Although well-intentioned parents may be well versed in buying a car seat, the danger of serious injury is just as great if the seat is not fitted properly or if they have chosen the wrong type of seat for the height, weight and age of the child.”
In tackling this vital road safety issue, the Council has adopted the award-winning ‘Good Egg In-Car Child Safety Campaign’ to benefit from its proven record of success in significantly reducing casualty rates among child passengers across the UK.
The Good Egg Campaign is designed to ensure that babies and children are properly restrained whilst travelling in the car, by showing parents and carers the correct way to fit in-car child safety seats.
An unrestrained child can be killed in an impact with speeds as low as 5mph. If properly restrained a child is three times less likely to sustain a head injury in a collision than an unrestrained child.
In previous years, individual child car seats were checked at special clinics across the UK as part of the Good Egg Campaign. From this, 1,221 (52%) were found to be either incorrectly fitted or were incompatible with the vehicle they were installed in.
There were wide variances, with as few as 1 in 10 child seats correctly fitted in some parts of the country.
James Gibson, spokesperson for Road Safety GB, said: “The Good Egg Campaign is a brilliant initiative. It provides a wealth of vital information about choosing the right seat for your child and the free seat checking clinics ensure that seats are correctly fitted.
“Even if you believe your seats are correctly fitted it is still worth going to the clinic and having them checked by an expert to make sure. In previous checks across the country it is worrying just how many seats are incorrectly fitted or unsuitable for the vehicle they are installed in.”
Bath & North East Somerset Council strongly recommend and encourage all Child Car Seat retailers/stockists should aspire and obtain Good Egg accreditation – in line with road safety good practice and high quality customer service.
Parents can find out more about the campaign and also the retailers who have signed up to the Good Egg Charter at the campaign website www.goodeggsafety.com.
