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Are You a Law-abiding, Responsible Parent

Do you consider yourself a law-abiding citizen and a responsible parent? If so then presumably you would never leave your children unsupervised near a swimming pool nor allow your small child to ride his bicycle in peak-hour traffic on a busy highway, nor play with matches or leave firearms within reach of children. And you would never allow a child to travel in a car without wearing a safety belt or properly secured in a car safety seat.

If you can still honestly say that as far as the law or responsibility in considering the safety of your children, you are above reproach, then you are in the minority if you are a South African motorist. According to a recent survey carried out by the AA’s Public Affairs department only 50% of drivers use their safety belts. An even more disturbing finding was that only 20% of passengers buckle up when travelling in a vehicle.

Considering that passenger deaths in children is the fourth leading cause of unnatural deaths in the country, then it stands to reason that according to South African law an adult is guilty of a criminal offence if they allow a child younger than 14 years to travel in a motor vehicle unrestrained. The driver of the vehicle will be arrested and charged with homicide if a child that was unrestrained at the time of an accident, dies as a result of the accident. This is frightening, but not as hair-raising as the fact that there is a 75% chance that a child will die if thrown out of the car when an accident occurs which, according to Professor Sebastian von As of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, is the case.

On average the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town treats 20 children a month for injuries sustained in car accidents. What is shocking is that on average 80% of these children are unrestrained at the time of the accident. Unfortunately this is not surprising considering that according to a study conducted by the AA, only 16% of children on South African roads are properly restrained while travelling as passengers in cars, despite the fact that 338 children under the age of five died in car accidents last year. It is extremely sad to think that the majority of these injuries and deaths could have been prevented if the drivers of the vehicles had ensured that the children were properly restrained while travelling.

On impact an unrestrained 10kg toddler becomes a 300kg human projectile, rocketing forward, either into the dashboard, into the back of the driver’s seat, or worse yet straight through the windscreen. If children or babies are held on the laps of adults and an accident occurs the forces in a crash often make it impossible to hold onto a child and result in the child being ejected from the vehicle or crushed by the adult holding it.

The rear seat is often mistakenly seen as a safe place to be in a crash, but research and crash tests show that the opposite is true. Unrestrained rear seat passengers are three times more likely to suffer death or serious injury as belted passengers and if the car is involved in a collision unrestrained passengers can hit other occupants with the force of a small elephant causing massive injuries.

Hopefully, if you as a driver of a motor vehicle have in the past been guilty of driving without ensuring that all passengers are safely buckled up, this article will motivate you to obey the law and look after the safety of both yourself and your passengers in future.

Remember that the correct car insurance can replace your car – nothing can replace a life, but responsible driving habits and the use of safety belts can prevent the loss of a life.

The author specializes in car insurance. To read more on vehicle insurance, visit getinsurance.co.za

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