Your little ones deserve the best protection when they are travelling with you in the car, and that means having them securely seated in a Child Restraint System (CRS), typically a childseat. Until this year, there was no compulsion for drivers to use CRS but the fatalities involving small children has been high and the authorities therefore decided that if people won’t use their common sense, then they need to be forced to do so by law.
A child in a car with a proper CRS has a lower risk of getting injured compared to an unrestrained child, in the event of a road accident. As pointed out by the World Health Organisation, a major problem today is child injuries, disabilities and even fatalities caused by road accidents. The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety (MIROS) found that only 30% of car drivers use child carseats.
As part of their initiative to support the call in enforcing the mandatory use of child carseats, Shell is giving away 138 child carseats. The campaign is on until April 12,2020 at 136 Shell stations in the Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan regions. Up to 17 customers will stand a chance to win a child carseat every week since the campaign began last month.
Naturally, the winners are delighted to get a free carseat and in the case of Lim Yen Wei, it means that they won’t have to swap the seat between his car and his wife’s car as each one can have its own installed all the time.
Another winner, Mohd Faizal Abdul said: “My 3-year-old niece used to travel without a child carseat. Now, she gets to travel on the road safely. I am very glad that Shell is promoting road safety by rewarding customers with child car seats! This is a good initiative by Shell.”
Click on the image above for the full list of participating stations.
As of this week, 70 lucky parents have already won child carseats. To win one, it takes only two simple steps: No.1 – customers need to spend a minimum of RM40 in a single receipt at participating Shell stations in Kuala Lumpur and Negeri Sembilan; No. 2 – customers need to submit their details via a contest form at the station. Upon completion of these two steps, customers will stand a chance to win a child carseat that is given each week.
“At Shell, we always want to make life’s journey better for our customers. This is a gesture from some of our stations to promote the use of child carseats. Often, many parents do not know how important it is to have suitable Child Restraint Systems. By rewarding customers with child carseats, we hope we can educate parents to protect their children when travelling on the road,” said the MD of Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn Bhd and Shell Timur Sdn Bhd, Shairan Huzani Husain.
Many Malaysians who follow social media will not have missed the shocking video of a small child being ejected from a car onto a busy highway – very fortunately not being run over although the possibility was very high. The public was quick to condemn the driver for not having the child restrained in a childseat – in spite of the law already making it compulsory since January 2020.
At the same time, there are still those who say it is costly for them to buy childseats, especially if they have many children. This issue is understandable although the life of a child must be given a high priority. Companies like BMW Group Malaysia have offered childseats at a subsidized price to qualified families and there’s a call for more companies in the private sector to help.
There are different types of childseats for different ages, starting from infant. Prices range from RM100 to RM1,600 or more. What’s important is to ensure that the childseat is certified in accordance with Malaysian law.
TAU Trading Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of TAU Corporation Japan, has responded to that call by offering sponsorship to help lower income families get a subsidy for buying a crash-tested safety-approved child safety seat (or child restraint system, CRS). A mock cheque was presented by TAU Corporation Japan’s CEO, Akitaka Miyamoto, to Jchanet Tan, Director of Child Passenger Safety Malaysia (CPSM), an organization dedicated to child traffic safety.
As a start, the sponsorship amount of RM6,400 will be used for a contest where participants have to answer a question and complete a slogan before submitting their answers. It is one approach to further increase understanding on the needs of using CRS for children in moving vehicles. Winners will be presented with cash vouchers valued at RM100 that can be used at any of the retail outlets or brands collaborating with CPSM. The program runs until February 29, 2020.
CPSM’s mission is to help the public have a better understanding of child safety in moving vehicles.
“It is our hope that once a program like this is launched, more corporations will be called to action and consider participating or supporting our Road Safety Campaigns. Road safety is everyone’s responsibility. We can all make a difference if we put our hearts and head together,” said Ms Tan.
Ms Tan noted that there are many in the lower income group who care about the safety of their children but lack the knowledge and capability to do something about it as many of them are struggling financially to provide for their family. “We understand that having a child safety seat will mean an extra expenditure, even for that 1-time cost for 6 years of protection and peace of mind,” she said.
The current CRS regulation came into effect on January 1, 2020 and makes it compulsory for children below 135 cm or less than 12 years old to be properly harnessed in a CRS in private vehicles. CPSM has been a strong advocate of CRS as far back as 2016 but due to lack of funding, its initiatives were limited. Support from both the government and private sectors will enable them to do more.
TAU Corporation, established in 1996, is the leader in damaged car business in japan. The company buys vehicles damaged by accidents, wind, or floods in Japan and sells them to customers in more than 110 countries worldwide. Their vision is that road safety is everyone’s responsibility. Together with this initiative, they hope that children in Malaysia can travel safer in a crashworthy safety seat driven in a safe car by their caregivers.
On January 1, 2020, the new law on compulsory usage of child restraint systems (CRS) comes into effect. This complements an earlier law requiring all occupants in the vehicle to use the seatbelts and now, small children who cannot use such restraint systems must be placed in childseats.
There are grumbles about the cost of getting childseats, especially for those with many children – not uncommon in Malaysia. The government is looking into solutions for such cases but stands by its position that the law will still be implemented even though it may be an unpopular move. The benefits in reducing deaths is significant enough that the government is willing to ‘take the heat’.
Installation of childseats should be in the rear; placing them at the front passenger’s seat should be only be done if really necessary. And apart from ensuring that they are installed securely (the ISOFIX points in most modern vehicles ensure this), having them facing rearwards is better.
Fact: small children highly vulnerable in car accidents
To understand why the rearward-facing position is better, we need to look back at the history of childseats. For a long time, it had been observed by automobile safety researchers that small children were highly vulnerable in car accidents. Although 3-point seatbelts were available, they were not suitable because of the smaller size of children.
In 1964, using the same idea that protected astronauts from the effects of the tremendous g-forces experienced during a rocket’s lift-off into space, Professor Bertil Aldman in Sweden designed a rearward-facing childseat.
The purpose of this seat was to distribute the forces of a frontal collision over a large part of the child’s body, ie the entire back, neck and head, and also to provide support to the spine during the course of an accident.
The way the seat was constructed and installed was particularly important for small children as a conventional forward-facing restraint system would not provide sufficient support to the child’s unproportionally large head and a neck that was still fairly weak compared to an adult’s.
ISOFIX points (left) are usually found in the rear seats and enable the childseats to be easily and securely installed.
Strict regulations
By the end of the 1960s, the first rearward-facing child seat became available and was intended for children between 9 months and 4 years old. In 1973, new regulations were introduced in Sweden pertaining to the approval of CRS and were so stringent that only those with a rearward-facing design could be approved by the authorities.
Researchers at Volvo began compiling data on the way children (of up to 4 years old) were restrained in cars and there was some evidence of benefits. However, up till the end of the 1970s, awareness of the value of CRS was still not great so statistics were insufficient.
The 1980s, however, seen a rapid rise in childseat usage and virtually all small children travelling in cars in Sweden were properly restrained. Part of the reason for the increased usage by parents was also due to the campaigns to make people aware of the importance of restraint systems for adults and children, something which the authorities in Malaysia have been carrying out.
Improper usage of childseats
Studies have shown that there are two major ways that parents have misused CRS, both of which are dangerous. The child may not be restrained properly or be in a seat that is not the right type for his or her age or worse, the child seat is not mounted correctly, or the child is not restrained in the seat at all.
If a child is not restrained properly in a child seat, the forces during an accident can send him or her flyting around the cabin and sustain serious injuries. In an extreme situation – and there have been cases reported – the child may even be ejected through the window.
A correctly-used child seat can help to reduce the risk of fatal injuries by approximately 70% but for a partially-misused child seat (eg wrong size), the reduction is approximately 40% only.
From Volvo’s own investigations of thousands of accidents involving its own vehicles with children in them, the most common type of misuse was found to be that the seat was not fitted according to the instructions. In two cases, the child seat was wrongly fitted facing forward and one of these two cases saw the child sustaining fatal head injuries when the roof intruded into the compartment where the child was seated (but it is not clear whether the child was restrained or not).
Various other studies at the time did not provide reliable conclusions regarding the difference in outcomes between rearward-facing childseats but there was a feeling that they were more ‘positive’ than the corresponding number of forward-facing seats. Over time, as more data was collected, it was increasingly obvious that children in rearward-facing childseats have had the lowest risk of injury (from slight to serious injuries).
An examination of the types of injuries sustained showed that only 5% those in rearward-facing child seats had head injuries whereas 18% of the unrestrained children suffered such injuries. In every case, the highest percentage of injuries was experienced by children without any form of restraint. They are also likely to have injuries to their limbs.
When the children get bigger and taller, they require booster seats that raise their body so it will put them in the correct position to use the seatbelts.
It is interesting to note, however, that those on the booster cushion/seat had relatively high rates of neck and chest injuries, which suggests that the wrong positioning of the seatbelt could have been the cause.
How do the children feel?
In promoting the use of rearward-facing child seats, it is also important to understand how the little users feel. However, the studies undertaken have shown adult attitudes which might not accurately reflect the real experiences of the children.
In one study, observations were made regarding how adults and children travelled. It showed that 66% of all children — but only 25% of all adults — preferred to sit with their backs against the direction of travel. Adults seemed to have a resistance towards travelling backwards so there is a possibility that they may have a misconception regarding the experience of the child.
Various studies suggest that the greatest problem in connection with the use of the childseat is that the child does not like it preventing him or her from moving around, especially during long trips. This is not peculiar to rearward-facing seats as a similar problem, with the same magnitude, would also be the case with forward-facing seats. To overcome this, it is suggested that the child be allowed to see and communicate with others in the car; if the driver is alone, the seat can be installed in the front seat where the child can see another person.
Rearward-facing or forward-facing, investigations of many accidents all over the world have shown the importance of proper CRS in preventing a child from being ejected from the car if it should roll over or tumble down the side of a slope.
The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (FOMCA) and Child Passenger Safety Malaysia (CPSM) have raised several issues pertaining to the recently launched child restraint system (CRS) guidelines by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS).
The two organisations say the guidelines are confusing to the consumers with regard to a MIROS QR Code being present on approved childseats sold in Malaysia. Upon checking by FOMCA with the Road Transport Department (JPJ), it was found that a component type approval (CTA) by the JPJ is enough to show that a child safety seat is approved as per safety standard. This leads to the question of the necessity of the QR code.
Childseats permitted for use under the new law which comes into effect in 2020 must meet UN ECE regulations and have the labels shown on the left side. On the right is the MIROS QR code that is mentioned in the MIROS guidelines.
Parents hesitant about making purchases
There are currently no known child safety seats sold in Malaysia that come with the QR code and this is making parents hesitate about making purchases. “It is a counter-intuitive measure to introduce the QR code now when Malaysia is still at its early stage of introducing this new law and promoting the use of child safety seats,” a statement issued by CPSM said.
Nur Asyikin Aminuddin, a Senior Manager from FOMCA (above), deemed the guideline as misleading as it does not portray the views from stakeholders including independent bodies as well as the consumers. “MIROS, as a research body, is not a certification body. I hope that Standard Users will intervene with this issue as they are the national accreditation body,” she explained.
She added that JPJ and Ministry of Transport (MOT) should be the responsible bodies to endorse and make any guidelines and official announcement related to child safety seats. They should also publish the list of approved brands and models on their website that succeeded in getting the JPJ’s CTA and thus meet the required safety standards.
The MIROS collaboration with Lazada Malaysia
Another issue raised by FOMCA at a press conference yesterday was the collaboration of MIROS in the LAZADA Car Seat Assurance Program. FOMCA says that the collaboration is violating the Competition Act 2010 as it breached the rights of consumers, which is the right to choose. The program is restricting the market when it should be an open market. Crash-worthy child safety seats should be made available not only through one online platform.
The press conference was held after the graduation ceremony of 19 new certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians (CPST) yesterday. This number brings the total CPSTs to 66 in Malaysia, with the majority of them from retailers and distributors. The certification program, which started in 2018, is an annual training program with Safekids Worldwide as the certification body and CPSM as the co-organiser.
Creating greater awareness of CRS
The aim for the program is to increase the number of skilled and knowledgeable persons who will become the resource centres in their communities to relay updated and correct information with regards to selection and usage of child restraint systems.
Malaysia is in dire need of more personnel certified by a proper certifying body to cater for the growing awareness among the public. With that being laid out, competency of the agency in conducting any certification such as the Child Occupancy Safety Advisor (COSA) program was also being asked as the proper channel should be directed at utilising readily available resources such as Safekids Malaysia which is also in partnership with Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).
CPSM, in agreement with FOMCA’s concerns, are both supportive of the new law. However, MOT was urged to provide clear direction and roles for its agencies in order to execute the law efficiently.
