9 May 2015

Campaign for safer car seat laws launched

A petition to change the law to require children to travel in rear facing car seats until a minimum age of two years old has been launched, gathering over 1300 signatures in the first 24 hours.

The campaign, called Rearly Safe has been initiated by parents, caregivers and registered car safety technicians and launched this week as part of Global Road Safety Week 2015.

“Evidence shows that properly installed rear facing car seats are up to five times safer than forward facing car seats” says Child Restraint Safety Technician Rachael Hannah.

“NZTA and Plunket recommend rear facing until a minimum age of 2, but this is not currently required by law and therefore many parents turn their children sooner. As parents ourselves we know that this is often because information about rear facing seats is not always readily available from all retailers. We would like the Government to change the law to reflect this recommendation."

ENDS

Notes for Editors
• www.rearlysafe.com
• Petition – launched on Thursday 7 May 2015. Currently standing at 1433 signatures at 1720 Sat 9 May.
• The law currently requires children to travel in an age appropriate car seat, but doesn’t specify how long children should rear face for. By contrast, new European Union (EU) laws currently being phased in will require rear facing to 15 months and it is common for children in some European countries to rear face until the age of 4.
• Since New Zealand currently accepts 3 standards of seats, including EU seats, it would make sense for the law to be updated to require rear facing to the age of 2 as a minimum (particularly as this is already recommended by NZTA and Plunket).
• Alongside the law change, campaigners are also asking for more information to be made available to prospective parents and caregivers before the birth of their child. This will allow them time to research suitable options and to save to buy a seat. At the moment there is very little information available to parents.
• We would like to see the Government work with car safety technicians and car seat retailers to make more information about safe seats available to the public and for seats to be made more accessible particularly to families on lower incomes.
• There are already excellent subsidized car seat schemes available in some parts of New Zealand and it would be great to see these extended throughout New Zealand but with more focus on rear facing.

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