16 February 2010

New Law on Car Restraint

In one of the day care newsletter, there was an update about the new law on car seats that will be implemented this year. It was a bit vague but I reckon the car seat in my car is not the legal one.

This is the new rulings.

Children aged under six months must be in an approved, properly fastened and adjusted rear-facing child restraint (baby capsule).
Children older than six months, but under four years of age must use either a rear-facing child restraint or a forward-facing child restraint with an in-built harness.
Children older than four, but under seven must use either a forward-facing child restraint with an in-built harness or a booster seat.

Baby capsule/car seat Child’s weight
Rear-facing baby capsule Up to 9 kg
Forward-facing child car seat 8 kg to 18 kg
Combination car seat and booster 8 kg to 26 kg
Booster seat 14 kg to 26 kg
Child harness 14 kg to 32 kg

Problem is, the car seats with in-built harness are only up to 17 kilos weight. I mean, The Tatapilla at 2.5 is already 14 kilos. Buying one of those is like throwing money as he’ll just be able to use it for 1 year maybe.

We will be tuning in tonight in the news as there is a section that they will show what’s the proper car seat and what’s not and to confirm that we either have a correct car seat or not, once and for all.

You see, when we bought my car we also bought another car seat (another expense not to mention car insurance, maybe from one on the carinsurancelist blog) – a booster actually as we thought of economising as it will hold up to 24 kilos. It has no in-built harness but it is not a booster per se as it has a harness attached to the car.
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