Big step forward in child seats

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 21

Big step forward in child seats

Backward-facing car seats for children are being tested throughout New Zealand by a group of people who believe that they offer better protection in car ■ crashes, the “Auckland Star” reports. About 15 people, including medical researchers, two psychologists, an Auckland City Council traffic education officer and a doctor, have agreed to test the new seats. The three-month test involves children aged from one to four years.

Among the group is a father who says his baby daughter was “saved” by a backward-facing seal. Mr D. Ormandy, of Kawakawa, Northland, was seriously injured in a twocar collision earlier this year. He had 50 stitches

in one leg, which was broken in two places. One of the passengers was treated in intensive care for two months and was on a life-support unit for at least a month, he said. A second passenger was still on crutches.

However, his daughter, then 10 weeks old, was unhurt. The child seat was similar to the one he was now testing. The test run by Dr Tord Kjellstrom, senior lecturer in community health at the Auckland School of Medicine, will be repeated by the Plunket Society and supervised by Minister of Transport officers. Dr Kjellstrom said about 300,000 backward-facing child seats were used in his native Sweden. They were the only Govern-ment-approved seats for children, he said.

“New Zealand has three times the number of one to four-year-old killed per capita in traffic accidents than Sweden,” he said. Of 109 cases of children aged between one and four treated at Auckland Hospital between 1970 and 1977 after traffic accidents, 39 per cent fell out of the car, he said. Dr Kjellstrom and his wife have formed a company to market backwardfacing seats, but it would be non-profit-making. A trust would be formed to decide how any profits could be channelled into I research and community [ health.