Road safety for kids

Why is it important to particularly protect your kids in traffic?

The distribution of body weight of a child differs from the one of an adult. Thus, the head of an infant makes up for about a third of the body weight whereas the head of an adult only amounts to a fourteenth. Therefore, babies are a lot more sensitive to concussion damages. The pelvis of bigger kids is not fully developed yet, enabling regular safety belts to get out of place during an accident and hurting the child drastically. This can cause internal injuries, mainly in the abdominal region.

What measures concerning the security of children in cars are taken on a political level?

Road safety for children is an important subject that receives its due attention. In the European Union and in Switzerland, the new regulation ECE R129 i-Size took effect in 2014. It is mandatory to mount child safety seats meeting this new norm against the direction of travel for children up to 15 months. According to seats meeting the still effective norm ECE R44.03/.04, this is only mandatory for children up to 9kg. The new regulation leads to even more security in a side collision or head-on collision. Furthermore, the choice of the correct safety seat is facilitated as i-Size models are categorized according to the body height instead of the weight.

Which regulations do you have to follow where?

The same laws apply for Germany, Austria and Switzerland: Child safety seats have to either meet the norms ECE R44.03, ECE R44.04 or ECE R129. Since 2010, child safety seats of the norms ECE R44.01/.02 are not permitted anymore and must not be used in traffic anymore! It is mandatory to protect Children with a so-called child restraint system (which is the legal term for child safety seats). This applies for children up to 12 years or 150 centimeters height, depending on what is met first. Car owners who don’t secure their children according to these regulations have to anticipate being fined.

In France, the same regulations apply. However, only children up to 10 years or 135-150 centimeters height have to meet them.

Unfortunately, in the United Arab Emirates there is no binding law regulating the usage of child safety seats yet. You merely must protect your child with the same, normal safety belt that adults use as well. Car owners only receive a small fine for placing their children below 10 years on the front seat. There is definitely a need for action as it is inevitable to secure children in standardized safety seats to keep the potential risk of injury as low as possible.

Our service

The safety of your children is close to our hearts. Therefore, it goes without saying that Edel & Stark has enough standardized and permitted child safety seats of different sizes in store. If you are travelling with your children, you can comfortably specify how many child safety seats you need when getting a quote online. We will make sure that you will find them safely and correctly mounted in your dream car when collecting it. Furthermore, we will show you how to properly place your kid onto the safety seat. If you need more information or have any insecurities, we will be glad to help. Enjoy a safe and pleasurable drive!