A new survey by Volvo UK has discovered that many parents are putting their children in danger by placing them in incorrect child car seats.
The Swedish car company recommends that parents use fear-facing seats for children up to the age of four to reduce the risk of injury in the event of an accident. However, in the survey of 2,030 adults, 94 per cent said they had used a front-facing car seat when their child was aged four or under - and a shocking one in five admitted that they had used a front-facing seat before their child had reached six months old.
Dr Lotta Jakobsson, senior technical specialist in injury prevention at Volvo Cars, explained: “Children up to four need to travel rearward-facing in cars, simply because their neck is too weak to support the head. You therefore need to protect them.
“We need to communicate this message to everybody so they understand the importance of having the children rearward-facing, because if they end up in a high-severity frontal impact, it’s a question of life or death.”
In the same survey Volvo looked at the worries parents have over their own teenage children driving, with a fifth of parent saying that they would rather their children jumped in a taxi rather than getting a lift from another teenage. Fifty-two per cent would like to be able to control the speed of the car their teenager is driving, a tool which is available for Volvo owners, who are able to pre-set a maximum speed that car can travel before anyone gets behind the wheel.
“Distraction, disturbance and anything linked to inattention while driving is a hazard. Technology is moving forward, so we want to start addressing these hazards with a safety feature that allows parents to be able to decide what is a reasonable speed for whomever they’re lending the car to,” said Malin Ekholm, head of the Volvo Cars Safety Centre.