Northern Beaches Mums Group
Northern Beaches Mums Group

When near enough is really not good enough

Imagine cars came without seatbelts, and you had to source your own and fix it in the car yourself, for your own personal use.

Would you:

  • Buy yourself a discount seatbelt from Kmart?
  • Trust a seatbelt that you found in a Council clean up?
  • Use a seatbelt made for someone a different size to you?
  • Trust yourself to correctly install and tension your seatbelt?
  • Feel safe if your seatbelt shifted when braking or cornering?

Think about this.

Of course cars come with seatbelts, but seatbelts don?t fit kids. Read on.

Modern cars have fantastic in-car safety systems, but they are designed purely for adult sized bodies. Nice for us, but be aware our children rely completely on their child restraints, which are often poorly fitted and incorrectly used. Road trauma has historically been the leading cause of death for Australian children up to the age of 14. And for every child that dies, around 2000 are left with injuries, many disabling.

Really, think about this.

It?s not necessary to buy the Rolls Royce of seats, but there is just no excuse for not using the ones we have correctly. Really no excuse at all.

The vast majority of accidents happen on city roads at speeds that mean most injuries are PREVENTABLE. Many of the kids that will end up at Emergency after a car accident would suffer less trauma if their seats were properly fitted and used.

Seriously, think about this.

We make sure our kids wear a helmet, we fence our pools, we supervise them at the playground, in fact we childproof our entire homes and still there?s choking hazards, lightning strikes, bee stings, shark attacks ? the list of possible dangers is endless. And yet, all of those things combined pose less of a risk to our kids than a badly used car seat.

This is not nanny state stuff, or coddling modern children and making them soft. Quite simply, the car is statistically the most dangerous place for a child, and it is up to us as their parents to do everything in our power to keep them safe. It?s not necessary to spend a fortune, but we do need to know how to do things properly, and we need to ensure we are doing it properly every time we put them in the car.

The reality is you don?t have to cause a crash to be involved in one. And it?s a fact of life that most people text while driving. They just do. And how many of us can say, hand on heart, that we have never been distracted while driving? Texting, answering a call, singing along to a song, yelling at the kids in the back etc.? A crash can happen in the blink of an eye.

Don?t shrug this stuff off. We as parents have to take on board that with car seats, near enough is really not good enough.

It costs nothing to have your child restraints checked, and if they are unsafe and need refitting, at Pearce?s Child Restraints it costs just $50 for the first seat, and $20 each for any additional seats in the same car. We have fitted around 60,000 seats in the last 12 years ? we know our stuff. Every single working day we see poorly installed and wrongly used restraints, and happily we are able to fix them. It?s the ones we don?t see…

When you?re done thinking about it, call us on 9997 4602, and we can sort your seats out, and teach you everything you need to know ? it?s what we do.


Article provided by Pearce’s Child Restraints.
Pearce’s Child Restraints is a family business based in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with over 12 years experience in selling and fitting child restraints. Originally having four children under five, they understand first-hand the challenges involved in keeping children safe and comfortable in the car. They have fitted more than 40,000 restraints over the year and are always happy to share their knowledge and experience with their customers. Pearce’s Child Restraints are passionate about safety and believe that having a good understanding of how the child seat works is the key to using it properly.