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| Not my children - image from RACQ website |
Kindy hosted an RACQ Car Safety Information Night this evening. I went along to support the event, rather than thinking I would learn very much. I was wrong. There's a lot about car safety I hadn't thought about. And lots of scary stories, which are designed to shock parents into submission and worked pretty effectively on me :)
My 3 big take homes:
- We'll be getting a harness to go with SP's booster seat, where he's previously just had the booster & adult seatbelt. The recommendation is that kids keep wearing the H-harness until they've reached its weight limit (36kg), even after they've finished using a booster. (I've just had a look at the RACQ website, and their info on this is a bit different. I'll check with the presenter & update.)
- SP will no longer be allowed to get out of the driver's side passenger door, unless we're in the driveway. He'll have to climb across to the 'Safe Door' on the other side. I've previously been uneasy about him starting to do this independently, and it ends now. So we'll have to rethink the positioning of car seats while #3 is rear-facing, as we can't ask him to climb past a rear-facing seat to get to the other door.
- We've always done our own version of 'Hands on car, don't go far' when the kids are out of the car and waiting to go, but I've been getting a bit lax with it. Laxness is over.
Another interesting point: While the car's seat belt holding the car seat in place needs to be as tight as possible, the anchor strap just needs to be firm, with 2 fingers able to slip between it and the top of the car's seat. The top of the car seat is designed to move forward a bit in the event of a crash, to provide a more gentle stop.
It was an excellent night, I highly recommend attending or holding one. I'll be pushing for one to happen at playgroup.
