What price for safety?

Well this is a topic that sits close to my heart.

As a parent, most would agree that our children come first right? Well, in the case of Child Restraints we often overlook fundamental & life saving factors that ultimately place our child's safety at risk.

Case in point:

It appears that some parents in New Zealand, are unaware that infant restraints such as the capsule, convertible, combined booster, booster seat, full booster & half booster all have a lifespan or expiry date. Worse still, I stumbled across an on-line sale of a second hand car seat recently whereby the seller was asked what the manufacture date is & the response was - Feb/00.

The potential buyer further added, your car seat has expired, whereby the seller responded - yes well the booklet does state 10yrs for expiry however the seat has been well maintained, not been in an accident and stored in the garage for a couple of years, so it still has plenty of life in it.

NEWS FLASH..... attention all parents, the life span does not depend on how well the seat was looked after, or how many children have used the seat, or that it has never been in an accident, or has been stored securely for a while. The manufacturer provides a manual indicating a life span in years because a car seat or child restraint is a plastic or polystyrene seat, containing metal and fabric parts that is made specifically for use in a motor vehicle.

Because of the materials used for child restraints, there is such a condition called PLASTIC DEGRADATION - a failure of plastic and elastomeric materials. This condition generally occurs as a result of:

1. mechanical stress
2. effects of chemical moisture degradation
3. effects of temperature.

The latter two effects generally result in either a loss of mechanical strength (i.e. softening) loss of ductility (i.e. embrittlement), swelling or explosive decompression (i.e. failure from internal expansion of gas upon pressure decompression).

As you can see, I'm very passionate about keeping our children safe in vehicles, not only from installation & correct use of a child restraint, moreover that the car seat itself is safe also.

As per the information provided in the following link http://www.childrestraints.co.nz/manufacture-expiry.php

Plunket dispose of old child seats for free. You can drop the seat off at your local car seat rental scheme. The coordinator there will take the seat to the dump where is it crushed by a roller so the seat cannot be re-used by anyone. If you can not get the seat to your local Plunket rental scheme, please take caution when putting it on the pavement to be collected by local council.

Take these steps to prevent re-use of an expired/damaged seat:

1. Cut the strapping, including the buckle, harness, tether strap and adjuster straps.
2. Remove buckle and any pieces that can be removed. Dispose of these pieces separately, scatter the pieces through your rubbish bag/bin.
3. Destroy the shell in anyway possible - sledge hammer, so the shell cannot be covered with a towel and used as a booster seat.
4. If the shell cannot be destroyed/cut write over the shell "Do not use, unsafe & expired seat" or similar message.

You can donate your old/damaged seat to a Safe2Go Trainer http://www.safe2go.co.nz/downloads/safe2go_trainers.pdf who can use the seat for educational purposes. These seats are not loaned out or sold to any one for use.

Alternatively, if you are in Auckland, NewBawn will stockpile expired seats for FREE disposal also. Please contact newbawntravel@gmail.com for more information.

Collectively, let's put our children's lives first & keep our children safe on the road!