South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 15/05/2014

Between 8.30am and 4pm, police officers will stop vehicles carrying young people to allow our road safety team to check if child car seats are fitted correctly. We are offering these free checks to give reassurance to parents that their children are safe and secure when travelling by car.

Previous safety checks carried out in South Gloucestershire have shown that almost half of all child car seats are fitted incorrectly. A total of 835 child car seats were checked at similar events in 2013 and of those we found 91 had major faults, 273 with minor faults and 29 seats that were incompatible with the make of vehicle. Major faults included seats belts requiring re-routing and many of the minor faults were with harnesses that needed adjusting, headrests that had to be removed and twists in the seatbelts.

Young people travelling as passengers will also be measured to ensure they are the correct height to safely use seatbelts. The legal requirement is 135cm unless they are sitting on a booster seat.

Road safety officer Pamela Williams said: “The car seat safety checks provide a great opportunity to find out from experts the right way to fit in-car child safety seats. The majority of drivers we stop are happy with the checks and grateful for the advice given. We are not trying to catch people out, but provide reassurance to parents that their young ones are safe and secure when travelling out on the district’s roads.”

South Gloucestershire Police Neighbourhoods Inspector Bob Evely said: “We’re pleased to be supporting this initiative again after its success last year.

“Having the right child car seat, properly fitted, is really important to keep children safe. Last year we found every other seat wasn’t fitted properly, so it’s really worth your time to come along and get yours checked over.

“Neighbourhood teams will be working with the council at these checks as part of our drive to work together to improve safety for all road users.”

Any parents, grandparents, childminders or carers who would like to have their child car seat checked voluntarily are welcome to stop by Filton BAWA, 589 Southmead Road BS34 7RG between 8.30am and 4pm on Tuesday 20 May.