A new child seat training course has been launched on the back of data which suggests that seven out of 10 child car seats are either fitted incorrectly or incompatible to the child or car.
Results from just under 3,000 child car seat checks carried out by Good Egg Safety in 2015, reveal that 71% of the seats were either fitted incorrectly or incompatible. 1,632 seats were checked in England, with 77% incorrectly fitted, while in Scotland 1,282 were checked, with 62% incorrectly fitted.
Jan James, CEO of Good Egg Safety, described the findings as “simply appalling”, and added: “After 14 years of extensive campaigning for the safer transportation of children, we are sadly still seeing fitment errors in more than two thirds of all child car seats. This means that babies and children remain at serious risk, which is completely unacceptable.”
To help tackle the problem, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has launched a new CPD (continuous professional development) accredited Advanced Child Seat Training Course, delivered in partnership with Good Egg Safety.
The course aims to train retailers, road safety professionals and child safety advocates to correctly advise on the installation and use of car seats. It covers areas including how car seats are tested, how to choose the right car seat and how to install them correctly within a vehicle.
Tanya Robinson, child safety centre manager at TRL, said: “Choosing and installing the right car seat can be a minefield for parents, so it’s vital that they are getting the right advice from retailers, manufacturers and road safety professionals. That’s exactly what the training course sets out to do.”
Alan Kennedy, Road Safety GB business and operations manager, added: “This course is very important in providing further layers of knowledge for road safety professionals and others who strive to keep children safe in cars.
“Accreditation and continuing professional development is vital in the road safety industry and this course is in line with the aims and objectives of the Road Safety GB Academy.”
Contact Good Egg Safety for details of when and where the course will run.
A pleasure. It’s been sent and I’d welcome any comments on it.
If anyone else would like to see a copy please feel free to email us directly to request one. enquiries@goodeggsafety.com
Jan James
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Thank you Jan, I will send you an e-mail.
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Thank you for letting us know and we would be pleased to provide you with a copy.
Please email enquiries@goodeggsafety.com with your name, company, position and contact details so we can send you one
Good Egg Safety completed over 80 mystery shops across the UK as part of our 2015 initiative and it is an ongoing process.
We chose not to disclose retailer names publicly and opt for a more constructive approach where we work in collaboration with retailers to correct any failures.
Hence the reason we’ve developed a new CPD Accredited course which better prepares retailers and their staff. We believe that it is important for parents and carers to still receive one-to-one consultation on child seat safety in premises they can physically take their child /car to instead of buying online.
While recent figures are very disappointing, we are focused on improving child safety and continue to strive for best practice as we’ve done for the last 14 years and welcome any support that will help us to achieve this.
Jan James CEO Good Egg Safety
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Some time ago the Good Egg, mystery shop exercise with child car seat retailers was included as a separate article. We were told that report would be published and we could e-mail Good Egg for a copy. We have not seen a copy, are they available?
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We completely agree with you Bill, it’s extremely frustrating.
The main answer, I believe, aside from not having enough isize compliant cars (currently only around six!) is to be found in our extensive mystery shop results from May which found an 80% failure rate in advice provided to parents from one of the biggest child seat retailers in the UK.
We’ve subsequently found, through interrogating the data from our Good Egg checks this year (almost 3000) that this particular retailer’s car seat failure rate was 80%. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Take a look at Watchdog tonight as I think you will find this is our biggest challenge and then please help us to promote TRL’s new internationally recognized training course because it’s not come a moment too soon.
Jan James CEO Good Egg Safety
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As Jan states it is appalling that after all these years we are no further forward in this area of road safety. I would have thought that when the ‘egg’ was first hatched in Glasgow all these years ago that by now wrongly fitted seats would have been a thing of the past and not still be at the same levels as they were way back then.
I do believe that some robust study/evaluation (starting with manufacturers/retailers) needs to be done on why we are no further forward in this area of road safety, particularly when we have in this period of time reduced road casualties greatly – yet we still can’t get 7 out 10 caring, safety conscious parents and carers to fit their child’s seat in a safe manner.
Bill, Scotland
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Well done Good Egg. This development is long overdue.
David, Suffolk
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