When my daughter was a baby and a preschooler, I tried hard to get my head around the subject of child car seats. Slowly but surely I discovered what was legally required, what was recommended and what was simply best practice.
I did research, identified the experts, asked the difficult questions, took notes and felt grateful that, as a journalist, these procedures were almost second nature to me. I recall tracking down Plunket's Dunedin-based national coordinator to quiz her about whether front-facing child car seats could go in the front seat of a car. (They could but only if the backseat was occupied or there wasn't a backseat - and as long as there were no operational airbags.) And I remember thinking what a minefield it all was and wondering how parents who were non-journalists fared in getting all the information they needed.
Sometimes cars have to be adapted to accommodate kids and their car seats. Over the years I've had a car seat bolt fitted in the boot of one car and on other cars I've had a mechanism retro-fitted to allow the front-passenger air-bags to be deactivated with the turn of the car key. In short, the safety of children in vehicles can be a complicated matter.
My parents would shake their heads in amazement when they saw me fussily harnessing in my newborn as she faced backwards in her cosy wee capsule in the backseat of the car.
"Crikey," they'd say. "When you were a baby we just used to chuck you and your carry-cot in the back of the V-Dub and drive over the Napier-Taupo Road and you survived." Dad, no doubt, would have been smoking Rothmans along the way, too. Those were the days.
But just as we now know the dangers of second-hand cigarette smoke, we also understand that babies and children are far safer when properly harnessed in an approved car seat that is appropriate for their weight and height.
