An unfortunate accident has taken place in New South Wales, Australia, involving a forward-facing child seat. The accident involved two little girls – one, in a forward-facing child seat sustained serious injuries, while the other, in a rear-facing child seat, escaped with just a bruise.
Their mother, Angela Brown, recounted the accident in a Facebook post. As she was travelling home, her SUV lost control and slammed into a tree at 100 km/h. “The impact caused our car to flip forward over its bonnet and onto its roof. At the same time, the large tree snapped and landed on top of the car, trapping us in it,” Brown wrote.
One would have thought that her daughters, who were in child seats would be somewhat protected, however, it turned out that her daughter who sat in a forward-facing position sustained worst injuries than her sister – who was sitting in a rearward position.
The two-year old, who Brown calls Miss 2 in her post, had to be airlifted to a hospital as her vertebrae was found to be broken in two places, according to the doctors. At this moment, her daughter is still in the hospital. “She was one of the youngest to be fitted with a Halo Brace. The doctor told us that most children with her injury don’t normally make it,” she said.
Brown left a final message in her post, that we too encourage all parents to take heed of. “I was always unsure about when turning my babies around but after our crash and the hard evidence we are presented with I will forever rearward face my babies as long as I possibly can. Don’t make the same mistake as I did. It could cost you your baby’s life.”
We wish Angela Brown and her daughter a speedy recovery, and we wish to remind all parents: if you have prematurely put your child into a front facing child seat, maybe it’s worth taking time off to switch him or her back to a rear facing child seat, immediately.
Many parents switch to front facing on their child’s first birthday because of bad advice. You should instead keep your child in rear facing child seats until they reach the top height and/or weight limit allowed by your child seat’s manufacturer. This can be up to 18 to 21 kg (this can be the weight of a child well over 3 years old) for ISOFIX seats, and even more for seatbelt seats.
Watch the video below to understand why rear-facing is safer than forward-facing.
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We won’t have this problem here because child seats are seen as an unnecessary luxury to most parents here. The first thing drivers do here when getting a new car is changing the wheels to sport rims, then complain about how expensive child seats are.
Just about to comment the same. But slowly more parents are realising the importance of carseat. Lets hope more people open their eyes to this
Firstly SUV out of control – from VSC less Toyota or useless Honda AWD traction? Or sudden death of DSG caused it?
Secondly 100kmph vs tree – luck is on their side as all are still alive & recovering. Otherwise whatever child seat bring used, heck even adults with roll cage, would just meet Jesus with wrapped metal cloths.
Such news should also identify the make of the vehicle.
The rim shows Mercedes? It is not snow too. Drunk driving or what?
I don’t believe they have the same call-man like here that put oil onto road, do they?
Malaysians never care about safety. Few days ago some company launches 2 new cars and they are people complaining about the lack of ah beng kits which you can install at ah beng shop, such as GPS, sunroof, push start button, etc.
Yet, they failed to give praise to the availability of very good safety specs such as ESP, ABS, HA, BA, etc. It’s proven, any car manufacturers who want to sell more cars in Malaysia can collaborate with ah beng shop and throw in as much ah beng kits as possible. Confirm selling like hot cakes. Tissue box holder remember? Anti snatch hook?
We still can see many people who carry their children on the lap, or simply let them jump in the car like how they jump on their queen size bed in the house.
Why not reconfig all rear seat to rear facing? Save all adult passenger too
Good one.. i likeeee
Driving with two young children at 100km/h is too fast. Patience is a virtue lacking in humans. Here slow off the lights, people honk. Drive in town area, slow also honk. Reversing out of parking, traffic coming still want to come out. Traffic jam use emergency lane. You think only your time is precious?
https://youtu.be/lK7hFsxv4AY
Which one we should follow????
Not every child can sit in rear-facing position calmly or comfortably especially there’s no forward facing air-cond blower from the rear. Don’t expect the child to look at the plain back seat during the whole journey especially to the parents whom don’t want their kids to stick to smartphone/tablet screen… Not to mention the distractions by the child to the driver pose a danger as well…
Lazy parent. People all over the world, in hotter places, put kids in rear facing car seat. What is more important, your childs life or making YOUR life easy?
Need to train them and get used to it.
Worry about children unable to sit still in car seats? Start them young. Mine sat in rear facing child seats until 3 before turning them forward, probably still too early. Now they always buckle up in the back seats and won’t release their seat belts until I stopped and applied hand brakes. Maybe they have OCD but at least they are safer travelling in cars. BTW I gave away all three baby/child seats to Tzu Chi. Hopefully someone is still using them.
They never realise importance of a car’s safety suite and driving safely until they themselves got into a serious accident. Nothing changes a man like surviving a supposedly fatal accident. Unfortunately, not many people got second chances or can ever drive again to re-evaluate what is more important.
Cant get Malaysians to wear seat belts, let alone put kids in car seats. I see kids riding on laps, on the center console, on the dashboards, and even sleeping on the package tray in back. Ask parents why, they said “kids complain”. Lazy parents.