Sir, - Recently I noticed two ladies in a car coming from the Wilton Shopping Centre in Cork. One was driving and the other was a front-seat passenger. Both had seat belts on, but sitting on the passenger's lap was a small child who wasn't restrained at all. The lady obviously didn't know that, in the event of a crash which caused rapid deceleration of the car, her own forward motion would be arrested by the seat belt but the child would continue to be propelled forward. Even at a fairly low speed that child would be slammed against the dashboard, probably head-first, while at higher speed he might be catapulted out through the windscreen. In the former case he would be injured, perhaps seriously. In the latter case his survival would be unlikely.
Those two ladies were quite happily chatting away, blissfully ignorant of the danger they were putting the child in. Unfortunately ignorance, complacency, or reckless irresponsibility are conditions that most adults suffer from when they are transporting children in vehicles. I say this because a survey carried out a couple of years ago found that 86 per cent of children carried in motor vehicles were not restrained in any way and 15 per cent were allowed to stand up between the seats or on the seats when the vehicle was moving. I have seen a car travelling at speed with a child half-way out of the sun roof. This threatened certain death for that child in a crash. I have seen several children sitting in front of a van, sometimes with one sitting on the dashboard, back against the windscreen. I have seen many small children being allowed to lean out of the passenger or back windows. This risks either a fatal skull fracture or decapitation. The amazing thing, of course, is that the same parents who would put their children at such a terrible risk when transporting them in a car would rush them to the doctor if they got the sniffles.
I tried campaigning on this subject a couple of years ago. I wrote letters to newspapers. They didn't print them. I also wrote to the Department of the Environment. It passed the matter on to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice said it was in the process of implementing a child car-safety campaign. When this came it turned out to be very brief and hardly noticeable. There have been quite a few children killed and injured since then. Perhaps a few of these children were properly restrained. I would speculate that the majority were not.
Over the August Bank Holiday weekend a car safety campaign was announced, including the wearing of seat-belts. I made a point of looking to see if this had encouraged people to safely restrain their children. It made no difference whatsoever. In the vast majority of cases children were not safely restrained and this included babies too.
Adults, why put your children at risk of an injury that might have life long consequences? Why put them at risk of being killed? Restrain them properly and travel with an easy mind and have an easier conscience in the unfortunate event of an accident. - Yours, etc.,
Brian Abbott, Cork.