The call to put infants and young kids in child seats when travelling in cars continues - now, Bernama reports that the Malaysian Consumers Association is urging the Government to introduce a law making it compulsory for child seats to be installed in cars when ferrying young passengers.
The association said that making child seats compulsory could help save young lives, stating that statistics have shown that child seats reduce the risk of death by 71% for infants and 54% for children between the ages of one and five.
"Thousands of vehicles are driven daily and children ranging from infants to five-year-olds are at risk because they are seated at the back of the car without proper restraints," the association's secretary-general Datuk Amarjit Singh Gill said.
Referring to the fatal accident on May 2 at the DUKE Highway in which a couple and their seven-month-old baby were killed after they were flung out of their vehicle, Amarjit felt the baby could have been saved if she was securely strapped in a car child seat.
He added that there are also parents who put the child in the front seat or on their laps when the car is driven, which is not only dangerous to the front passenger but also to the child.
Back in February, MIROS had also echoed these concerns and sentiments, when a 20-month old toddler was flung out of a car and killed in an accident. We have stressed the importance of using child seats in cars for a while now - read why you should start putting your kids in child car seats before something happens.
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