Child car seat can save your little one

The statistics are sad: in the last six years, 460 children under the age of 14 have died in vehicle accidents on UAE roads. The reality is even sadder: had those children been restrained by proper child-safety seats, the toll would have been greatly reduced.

Road safety experts estimate the mortality rate would actually be cut by 70 per cent if proper seating and harnesses had been used. That's a lot less tears, a lot less agony and a lot less anguish.

How often have you driven the roads only to see toddlers climbing over drivers, straddling the front seats, sitting on the laps of parents in the front passenger seat? The laws of physics cannot be changed. When a moving object hits another, injury and death follow. Children without proper restraints become missiles within cars, against jagged edges, tossed to the road, crushed and unprotected.

Adult seatbelts are not designed for little limbs and fragile bodies. Proper harnesses are required. Child seats must be properly anchored. Children must be properly secured. Regardless of the current legal provisions that allow for fines of Dh400 and four black points if children under 10 are carried in the front seats, it is the duty and responsibility of every parent to ensure their young are safe, secure and properly tethered in vehicles. It may not be the law, but it is common sense. Little lives are too precious.