Child Car Restraints

Abstract

Road trauma is a leading cause of child injury worldwide. In highly motorized countries, injury as a passenger represents a major proportion of all child road deaths and hospitalizations. Australia is no exception, particularly because there are high levels of travel by private motor vehicle to school in most Australian states. Recently, the legislation in Australia governing the type of car restraints required for children younger than 7 years of age has changed and has aligned requirements better with accepted best practice. However, it is unclear what effect these changes have had on children's seating positions or the types of restraints used. A mixed-methods evaluation of the impact of the new legislation on compliance was conducted at three times: baseline (Time 1), after announcement that changes were going to be implemented but before enforcement began (Time 2), and after enforcement commenced (Time 3). Measures of compliance were obtained by two methods: roadside observations of vehicles with child passengers and parental self-report (intercept interviews conducted at Times 2 and 3 only). Results from the observations suggested an overall positive effect. Proportions of children occupying front seats decreased overall, and use of dedicated child seats increased to almost 40% of the observed children by Time 3. However, almost a quarter of the children observed still occupied front seats. These results differed from those of the interview study, in which almost no children were reported as usually traveling in the front seat, and reported use of dedicated restraints with children was almost 90%, more than twice that of the rate in observations.