Child restraints : preliminary information on usage and attitudes : TARU 2/75

The legislation making it compulsory for vehicle occupants to use approved restraints does not apply to children aged under eight years. Observation surveys of usage have indicated that the proportion of child occupants who are restrained by child seat, harness or seat belt (either approved or unapproved) is around 25%, compared to 75% of adult occupants.* Clearly children aged under eight years remain a vulnerable group as far as vehicle crash protection is concerned. It is important that people's knowledge of and attitudes to child restraints be researched, to find out why the usage rate is so low. This consumer information is essential for developing educational programmes to promote child restraint use. It is also of great value to designers to have consumer feedback on current approved models. We need to identify any problems experienced with their everyday use, so that restraints can be made practical and comfortable, as well as safe. This will increase their acceptability for parents and children, and so increase the usage rate. As the first step in this consumer research programme, a series of six group discussions on the subject of child restraints were conducted, in February 1975, with mothers of children aged six months to three years. These discussions were to provide guidelines only, and findings should not be generalised to the community as a whole. The discussions served a dual purpose. They provided, background data for (a) the development of a publicity campaign to promote the use of approved child restraints and (b) the development of a questionnaire for use ?in a proposed community survey of child restraint usage and attitudes.