Child safety seats need to be widely promoted

Starting from July 1, the first national standard for child safety travel issued by the AQSIQ and the National Standards Commission was officially implemented.

A few years after China became the world’s first new car sales market, this mandatory national standard for restraint devices for children’s seats in motor vehicles has been promoted by the community’s common concern and the efforts of relevant departments, experts, and companies. The manuscript was finally released.

After the implementation of the National Standard for the Vehicle occupant restraint system, how can the safety awareness of consumers be cultivated and improved? Can the market buy affordable child safety seats? How to effectively monitor and regulate the market including users? All of this is of concern and there is an urgent need to have a clearer answer in a not too long period of time.

The standard is yet to complete the "Restriction System for Motor Vehicle Children Crew" released this time. It is China's first mandatory national standard for restraint devices for children's seats in motor vehicles. It was developed with reference to European ECER 44 safety seats. Technical regulations. The standard regulates the production and sales of child safety seats, and defines the terms and definitions of the restraint system for motor vehicle child occupants, the requirements for installation and fixation on vehicles, the structure of restraint systems, and the assembly and composition of restraint systems. Performance requirements and test methods for components. After the implementation of the standard, domestic vehicles must be equipped with standard child safety seat interfaces and safety locks. Car child safety seats will also be listed on the market in the future.

The National Automobile Standardization Technical Committee stated that the introduction of this standard indicates that China has taken a crucial step in the protection of children's vehicle safety. This is of great benefit in eliminating consumer concerns, promoting the improvement of the quality of domestic products, nurturing and regulating the market, and increasing the community’s attention to children’s car safety. In addition, the "Restriction System for Motor Vehicle Children Crew Members", as a national standard, has mandatory legal effects. The quality supervision departments in various places can carry out spot checks on the products of children's safety seats for sale and publish product lists that do not meet the standards. If the consumer purchases a child safety seat and tests the product after an accident has occurred, he finds that it does not meet the standards of the “Child restraint system for motor vehicle occupants” and can be held accountable by the manufacturer.

What needs to be pointed out is that many people in the auto sector stated that there is still a big regret for this standard, that is, there are mandatory standards only for manufacturers of child safety seats and related vehicles, and there is no mandatory regulation for the use of consumers. Due to the lack of supervision and regulation of child safety seat users, China's standards for restraint system for motor vehicle child occupants are still higher than the US FMVSS213 standard, European ECE R44 regulation, and Japanese TRIAS 51-1999 regulation. Obvious inadequacies.

Consciousness needs to be improved As consumers are still ignoring the phenomenon of children's travel safety, the lack of standards in consumer use has to be said to be a "plain injury." In the interview, the author found that although most car owners know the safety and reliability of children's safety seats, it is ironic that they did not install child safety seats. The scene we often see is that parents place their children in front and rear seats, and even parents drive directly with their baby.

So, what exactly causes the consumers to "know it easy?" Mr. Lei, the owner of the car, took eight years of driving experience. After his daughter was born last year, he began to purchase a child safety seat. However, he still hasn’t purchased it. Mr. Lei told the author that the original intention of buying a seat was to hope that with his daughter's convenience in the future, he found that the price of a slightly better child safety seat was higher, and the seat also had an applicable limit on the age of children. As children grow up, child safety seats need to be constantly replaced, which is costly. Some car owners who have used child safety seats also said that it is difficult to bring their children out to play. It is very troublesome to install seats each time. After installing the seat, the space of the vehicle is occupied and the comfort of the rear row is greatly reduced. The most common situation is that several trips without using child safety seats and no accidents occurred, and most owners slowly gave up choosing to install child safety seats. As everyone knows, hidden dangers are buried here.

The market urgently requires the author to see at a number of car dealers, Japan's Kang Bei, Germany Kiddy and other imported brands of child safety seat terminal retail price of 5,000 yuan. In some car repair and maintenance shops, child safety seats cost as little as 1,000 yuan and as much as 3,000 yuan. They are domestically-made mid-range brands such as "good boy," "Obey," and "baby first." On the Internet, child safety seats are varied, with most products ranging in price from 500 to 1,000 yuan, and some products as low as 300 yuan. In addition, the prices of the same product vary greatly among different sales channels.

If there is a widespread phenomenon of profits in a market, and laws and regulations stipulate that consumers must go to buy its products, this not only does not clean up the suspicion of “childcare”, but is also not conducive to the implementation of regulations. As a matter of urgency, the market for child safety seats must be regulated.

According to the data from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, the use of child safety seats can reduce the proportion of child injuries in car accidents from 11.5% to 3.5%. It is because of the importance of the safety seat that the penetration rate of child safety seats in Europe and the United States is close to 70%. In China, the use of child safety seats is less than 0.1%.

The lack of owners or safety awareness, or the existence of chance, is really worrying. How to improve the safety awareness of car owners, and quickly popularize child safety seats, overseas experience should be worth learning from. At present, more than 50 countries in the world have issued relevant regulations to adopt mandatory measures for the use of child safety seats. In the United States, children under the age of 4 or weighing less than 18 kg will be fined $100 if they do not use a child safety seat. In Germany, children under 12 years of age and less than 150 cm in height will be fined EUR 80 if they do not use a child safety seat.

Enhancing service is also a means. In the early days of the legislative promotion of child safety seats in the Taiwan region of China, relevant government departments produced detailed information and widely publicized in the media. Detailed and vivid cases made consumers have a deep understanding of the function of safety seats. Child safety seat manufacturers take the initiative to provide on-site service to consumers. In the process of introducing products, they help consumers understand the usage of products and select suitable products to promote the popularization of safety seats locally.

Links How to select child seats In the process of growing up, the functions of various parts of the body are not yet fully developed, and the protective measures such as car seat belts and airbags are designed and manufactured according to the body standards of adults, posing great hidden dangers to the safety of the child occupants.

In the purchase of child seats, the choice of child seats can be considered based on the child's age and weight, and can be divided into four categories according to their age and weight:

Group 0: Infant (birth to 13 kg, birth to 18 months);

Group I: infants and toddlers (9-18 kg, approximately 9 months to 4 years old);

Group II: infants, children, children (9-36 kg, approximately 9 months to 12 years of age);

Group III: Children (15-36 kg, approximately 4-12 years old).

In particular, it is important to note that children under 13 kg must purchase reversible seats, which will protect the baby's spine and head and neck, and prevent the baby from forming a strong impulse when braking.