Monday, August 22, 2011

Accidents in young children. Are they preventable?

I read a very heart wrenching news yesterday in the newspaper. A 1 year old plus toddler was thrown out off a car that he was travelling with his parents when collided with a vehicle. Another vehicle coming from the other side of the road could not stop in time and crushed the boy to death. The incident left the parents in shock and they were unable to provide any information required by the police after that.

I pity the family but one question that popped out in my mind was, 'Why was the 1 year old boy not safely strapped in a car seat?' That would have prevented the boy from being flung out of the car when the accident happened.

Many parents will think that car seat is only needed when there is nobody in the car helping to hold a baby. When they are other adults in the car to supervise/ carry the toddler/ baby, why bother with the car seat?

Of course I would think differently because I have had a few minor accidents before (who won't if you stay at JB and people are driving at a speed as if rushing for re-birth) and once with my 4 yo in the car and luckily she was strapped to her booster seat although I was just fetching her home from her pre-school.

I am the one who will insist to strap my kids properly at the car park even with drivers waiting impatiently to park at our space. It takes time as I have 2 kids to strap but if people want our parking space, they just have to wait patiently, right? If we need to travel using another car, I will insist to take our car seat (for our 2 yo) and booster seat (for our 4 yo) from our car to another car that we will be using. I will only forgo car-seats and booster seats when we are travelling to another state and I can only pray for our safety.

Conclusion: Use car-seats/ booster seats whenever possible because we are not able to predict accidents.