This morning we were driving on our way to visit some friends, when we came to a stop at a red robot (another word for a traffic light, for those of you who aren’t South African). I looked over at the car next to us and saw a young child, maybe a year old at best, standing in the middle of the backseat. My heart sank. But sadly this is not the first time that I have seen this and it won’t be the last either.
If you have read my second blog you will know that we were recently in a car accident. So I know that I am emotionally invested in this topic because I have had firsthand experience with the dangers of driving in a car. One of the first things that we were asked when we arrived in the emergency unit was, “Were your daughters in car seats?”. I have never been so grateful to be able to answer unequivocally “yes”. But it got me thinking how many children must be brought into the emergency unit where the answer to that very same question is a resounding “No”. So I did some research. According to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) in 2019, 1017 children died, and 45 000 were hospitalised due to injuries sustained on our South Africa roads. In the same article, I found this quote: “Collisions are the leading cause of death and injuries for children under the age of 14.” 1 I don’t know about you, but those stats are just scary, sad and feel so senseless. So then why do we still see so many children who are not buckled up?
Why aren’t we buckling up?
Let’s start by looking at some of the reasons why we, as parents, aren’t buckling up our children and then we can move onto the reasons why we should be.
I think there are three main reasons why parents don’t buckle their children up. First is because most parents give up “the fight”. I’m sure most of you will know exactly what fight I am talking about. Just about from the first time you strap your new little bundle of joy into their car seat, they start to scream blue murder. I will never forget how my eldest daughter screamed so loudly that her face turned red. It was heartbreaking. Only to have to repeat it all over again with our youngest daughter a few years later. We also had many battles about keeping their arms safely strapped into their seats. I know that we have not been alone in this, there are many parents who have struggled with the same issues. Children just hate being strapped in. Unfortunately, all too often parents give up buckling up their children altogether. But I will speak more about this later.
The second reason is most parents don’t think that they need to because their destination is so close. In our parents’ day, car seats had barely been invented yet and were not seen as even being necessary. We need to remember, however, that although our cars are safer, we have so many more cars travelling on our roads and at much higher speeds than years gone by. Many people fool themselves into thinking that car accidents only happen when they travel over long distances. How many of us will pray before we are about to go on a long distance drive, asking God for his hand of protection over us? But then don’t bother to pray when we do that quick drive out to pick up something from the shops? I must admit that I was in that category, before we had our car accident, which happened only 6 minutes from our home. In fact the majority of car accidents happen close to home, with 25 % of all accidents happening within the first 3 minutes of driving. 2 Therefore, we should be buckling up every time we travel no matter how far, or close, we have to go.
The third reason is because some parents do not know any better. A few years ago, I would have ignorantly said that everyone knows that a child needs to be buckled up in a car seat. But I have since learnt and grown in my understanding of the great divide within our society, especially within the South Africa context. What am I referring to you may ask? I am talking about privilege. I come from a position of privilege and so I have been fortunate enough to have been exposed to many things, but the one that is most relevant to this topic is the concept of a car seat. I grew up in a world where the concept of a car seat was not foreign to me. But that is not the case for everyone. When transporting children within a taxi or minivan car seats are simply not available. (Which is sadly not a requirement by Law 3) So from very young children have to sit on their mother or fathers lap when getting from A to B. When that same family uses a different mode of transport they don’t know that they need a car seat because they have never “needed” one before. I am not going to claim to have a solution to this problem, but what I will say is that we need to be working hard at making sure that parents know that car seats are a necessity, not a luxury only afforded to the privileged.
Why should we buckle up?
Let’s turn our attention now to the three most important reasons why I feel that we should be buckling up our children.
The first reason is to teach them that we will stick to what we say. Here is where we come back to the point I made earlier about parents giving up “the fight”. It is important that we give our children boundaries and to stick to them in every area. They will inevitably try and push those boundaries, but we need to keep them firmly in place. So they know that they can trust us to keep our word. By sticking to these boundaries we are also teaching our children the importance of obeying their parents as the Lord has commanded. (Col 3:20)
The second reason is closely linked to the first. We should be buckling up our children to show them that we love them and we want to protect them from harm. God doesn’t give us His law (His boundaries) to spoil our fun, instead he gives us his law because he loves us and wants what is best for us. Likewise, we need to teach our children that we are not trying to spoil their fun, but rather we are trying to protect them from harm.
Last, but certainly not the least, is because it is the Law. We, as Christians, are called to obey those who are in authority over us (Romans 13:1). That includes obeying the Laws that they have made. This is particularly important when it comes to raising children for we need to be modelling what it means to be a Christian to our children, even in something, which may seem so small.
So what exactly does the Law in South Africa say about buckling up children?
I found an article3 that was very helpful on this. It not only discusses what the Law requires, but also goes into what has been proven to be the safest course of action. According to this article, “On 1 May 2015 a new law came into effect that makes it illegal for an infant (a child under 3 years) to travel without being strapped into a suitable car seat.” I, personally, was shocked to find out that it is only required by Law to have a car seat up to the age of three years old. I thought that the age restriction was much older. However, the article does go on further to say that all children between the ages of three and fourteen (except where such a person is taller than 1.5 meters) are required to be strapped in with a seat belt at all times, whether in a car seat/ booster or not.
Unfortunately, standard seat belts are not designed for children, or anyone for that matter, under 1.5m tall. Again in this article it says, “…crash testing shows that children under 1.5m are much safer in car seats or boosters. Children strapped into seat belts before they are tall enough to achieve a good fit for the seatbelt were found to be 3 times more likely to be injured in a crash than adults. Children generally suffer serious neck and head injuries and perforated intestines when using a seatbelt alone. This pattern of injury has become known as “seat belt syndrome” by doctors who regularly face this pattern of injury in children.” While having a seat belt on is more often safer than not it is definitely not the safest course of action. It is far safer to have our children strapped up in a car seat/booster.
There was one more fact that I was very sad to discover. In South Africa, the law does not prohibit placing a child in the front seat. However, you will notice that in most newer model cars it has a warning against placing a rear facing car seat within the front seat of your car with an active airbag. Even as children get older it is still safer for them to sit in the back seat because of possible injuries and death sustained from the airbags on impact (For more information reference 3). In addition to this there is also the potential of objects coming through the windshield in the event of an accident.
I have written a whole blog to answer this question: “Why do we still see so many children who are not buckled up?” Truth be told I don’t have an answer or rather I should say I don’t have an excuse. I know better. I am called to obey the law of the land and to love and protect my children. We should love our children enough to not give up “the fight” and buckle them up.
Thanks for reading my post. I hope you found it helpful. Please send me any feedback, comments or questions that you may have. I would also like to hear if there are any topics that you would like me to deal with in the future. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Bye for now.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:16-17)
References
- https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/road-accidents-the-biggest-killers-of-children-in-sa-44f48507-71e9-46be-8a96-a0270b9d0a3e
- https://www.truscellolaw.com/blog/2021/03/car-accidents-happen-home/#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20studies,10%2Dmile%20radius%20from%20home.
- https://www.preciouscargo.co.za/blogs/car-seat-support/car-seats-and-the-law-in-south-africa
