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Home / Brand Insight
Brand Insight
Auckland Transport

How to save a child's life

23 Aug, 2017 05:00 PM5 minutes to read
Photo / NZ Herald.

Photo / NZ Herald.

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Police checkpoints yield astonishing failure rate in car seats – but spark great interest..

It's an unusual police checkpoint. People drive from all over to attend.
It's not drink-driving nor warrants of fitness, it's seat belt checks. Saving children's lives is the motivation.

Sergeant Wayne Paxton says it is not uncommon to witness a lengthy queue of cars waiting to be assessed at the checkpoints- full of people who want to make sure their children and their car seats are belted in properly.

Paxton, a road policing supervisor in Auckland's southern region, covering most of Counties-Manukau, says the message is sinking in now police have moved away from enforcement to education.

"When we hold a checkpoint these days, it's a little different," he says. "We advertise it and tell people that we and Auckland Transport and Plunket will be there and can help make sure they have their kids belted in right.

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"We choose a busy road with high volume traffic and go from about 7am-12. When we take a break for a coffee, we often come back to find a huge queue, full of grandparents and parents waiting for their turn - the response has been absolutely phenomenal."

It may not be a moment too soon. It sounds a simple thing - belt your child's car seat in properly. But it defeats an amazing number of people.

In Paxton's area last year and earlier this year (plus other areas in Auckland) 39 checkpoints were held on busy roads. Overall nearly 1800 child restraints were checked. Nearly two in three (62 per cent) had faults - either a faulty seat or incorrect installation.

Photo / Supplied.
Photo / Supplied.

That is bad enough but some of the individual results were far worse. In Clendon's Burundi Road, for example, one check last year stopped 34 cars - all with car seat faults. Over three separate checks, the cars using Burundi Rd had a 93 per cent car seat fail rate.

In a fourth check in June this year that rate came down to 74 per cent, probably a signal the message is getting through but Paxton says the danger is still very real for kids and parents.

One of the most common faults surrounds the popular capsule-style seat which can be used for a newborn and can then be adjusted for a toddler. That style of seat often has a locking pin which holds the bassinette in place but Paxton says some parents simply do not lock it into place properly or the mechanism is faulty.

"In a crash, that restraint is going through the front window," he says. "You are talking serious injury or fatality."

Seat belts and child restraints are once again a focus with Police, Auckland Transport and Plunket worried that the restraint message may once again need forceful renewal.

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In the last five years, over 300 people who died in New Zealand crashes were not wearing their seat belt. Most of those deaths were in 2016. The total road toll was 328 but 94 of those victims - had they been wearing a seatbelt, or strapped into a car seat - could still be alive today. The youngest was an 8-month-old baby boy who died alongside his mother in a crash near Twizel.

"Car seats are expensive; people often can't afford them or they look for a bargain, like all of us," says Paxton. "They might buy one cheaply, second hand, which might not meet approved standards for car seats here or which has been in a crash.

"Or they might purchase one from a big retailer where they are served by a 16-year-old girl and they get no guidance or advice on installing them, tethering them and adjusting them."

People should look for car seat retailers like one he knew which, for the price, would install the seat correctly, advise on adjustment and use and would re-install it without further cost if the parents bought a new car. No staff member could sell a car seat until they had qualified to fit them.

Latest figures of children killed or injured because of inadequate restraints are hard to nail down - not all reporting from crashes goes into that kind of detail.

However, last year it was reported that 18 children aged 14 and under die each year in crashes and about 26 are hospitalised every month in New Zealand. Official figures say child car seats, when correctly installed and used, can reduce the risk of death by 70 per cent for infants and up to 54 per cent for toddlers.

The Safekids Aotearoa organization now estimates that "more than 15" kids die every year in crashes in New Zealand. Spokesman Dr Mike Shepherd says: "The latest figures I have are from 2013 and there were 6 children who died in the 14-and-under bracket and 149 hospitalisations - so things have come down quite a bit."

But "fewer" still means too many unacceptable deaths though Paxton is sure the 'education, not enforcement' approach will be even more effective.

"It's a better way - and breaking down the barriers with youth is also important," he says. The police are already doing a "Slow Down Schools" campaign on the roads, using primary school children to reinforce the message.

"We also do checkpoints at high schools - we did one with Pukekohe High School recently and the response was amazing. We need that buy-in from the community like that - we cannot police properly without the community."

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