With the use of child car seats becoming mandatory as of January, the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) has advised parents to purchase suitable child seats or child restraint systems (CRS), and this means doing a bit of research into finding the right device, The Star reports.
Its director-general Dr Siti Zaharah Ishak said that according to the guidelines, every child below the height of 135cm (or approximately below 12 years old) should use a CRS, and a suitable unit should correspond to the height and weight of the child.
Based on ECE R44/04 or R129 standards, the guidelines specify four different types of seats – from birth up to 13 kg (Group 1, up to a height of 83 cm, approximately zero to 18 months), 9-18 kg (Group 2, 71 cm and above, approximately 15 months to four years), 15–25 kg (Group 2, 100 cm and above, approximately four to seven years) and 22-36 kg (Group 3, up to 135 cm, approximately six to 12 years).
She said that a correctly installed CRS may help to reduce the risk of death by 71% for infants and by 54% for children aged one to four years old, and reduce the need for hospitalisation by 69% for children aged four years old and below, and reiterated the importance of parents utilising these devices for their children. Based on recent observations during Ops Hari Raya 2019, MIROS found that only 33% of children were placed in a car seat.
“The seat can reduce the risk of injury or being thrown out of the car or hitting the hard object in the car during harsh braking or collision. Seat belts are a proven intervention to reduce the risk of fatalities during road accidents for adults. However, it is not designed to protect a child, ” she explained.
The transport ministry has said that enforcement of the use of CRS will not begin straight away, with drivers not being penalised for the first six months when the ruling comes into effect. “We want the people to really know and understand that the CRS is for safety. That is why the soft-landing approach is taken for the first phase of the implementation. This is like an educational or advocacy stage before the enforcement phase takes effect,” transport minister Anthony Loke said last week.
Meanwhile, the domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry (KPDNHEP) says it will closely monitor the online sale of CRS to ensure these items comply with the stipulated standards. Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the ministry will ensure that the issue of fake and unsafe goods being sold does not crop up.
“The guideline on the characteristics for child restraint seats has already been issued, and we will conduct enforcement in line with the conditions stipulated by MIROS, namely, product safety standard and trademarks, whether false or genuine. And if an outlet advertises (its products), we will ensure what is advertised are available on the products sold,” he said.
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You make it mandatory but you still make it expensip to buy proper childseats. Apa lagi mau? You just make people find their own ways to comply w/o going pokai. Why not you strictly enforce wearing of rear seatbelts first?
Only not so smart people will complaint over this regulation with so much excuses..smart people will find a way to comply it for their own beloved children safety..Let me teach you a trick, go buy CRS from overseas, import it to MY and do the customs clearance on your own. It might save you few hundreds ringgit if not thousands.
Really? So your going to spend thousands of ringgit just to fly somewhere and get the child seat and bring it back so to save thousands of ringgit? Err, how does that save at all again?
Ummmm….you could buy things overseas WITHOUT having to travel. We have a thing called the internet. Ever heard of it? You’re using it right now. Ever heard of eBay, Aliexpress, Amazon, etc.? They’re like super stores, but it’s all electronic and all the shopping is done on you computer. You can even do it on your phone! I mean, WOW, right?! Try it sometime, all you need is a ‘data connection’. You can look it up…in a book or something if you don’t have one of these ‘connections’.
If you insist on travelling overseas to go shopping, you can buy flight tickets ONLINE as well! What an age we live in!
https://paultan.org/2015/02/26/child-seats-miros/
This is the problem in Malaysia. People can have money to get many wives and tons of children but they will say got no money to buy car seat.
Priorities upside down. It is better to live within you means and give to your small family the best safety you can give.
It doesn’t have any relevance about smaller or bigger families. The total outlay per child is the same which is prohibitively expensive. In fact, bigger families have better cost efficiencies as more kids can take turns to use the child seats but the crux is the price of buying even 1 seat is expensive in the first place. Loke just only know how to talk without knowing the details. Like another said, this half-past six idea from our half-past six minister is doomed to fail.
Child seats expensive?
have you actually gone out to see what these things go for now? There are number of local manufacturers making seats.
They cost a fraction of the imported seats because imported seats get taxed. (I hand carried my kids seat back from the US, so there is no tax, otherwise the same Graco seat here would cost 1300, I paid half as much)
The price paid for a flagship handphone can buy several child seats. Where is the priority?
Don’t look at the imported models and complain seats are expensive. (Kastam should waive import tax on child seats, but a point to take up to the government later)
Why are you crying foul?
Whether it is mandatory or not, parents should strap their kids in, with the standard seatbelts or CRS.
The aforementioned 700rm Graco seat, is still being used after 9 years. So the yearly cost of it was less than 100rm/year.
What I don’t get is what with all these talk about “proper” seats?? just get Sirim to test the local seats if they lack certification. Imported seats are in compliance to international safety standards for child seats.
A highend phone is about RM6000 while a low end phone is about RM600, that represents a 5X decrease in affordability value.
A highend child seat is about RM 1000, so can I find an equally safe but lower end child seat at RM 200? No? Why is that so?
Whats more expensive? A RM500 car seat or the life of your child? Even if you child survives a crash, how about the potential cost of years of hospitalisation, physiotherapy or care for a special needs child? All because you couldn’t justify RM500 to take care of your child. This has nothing to do with the law and its enforcement and everything to do with the attitude of parents and how much they value the lives of their children….
RM 500 for A CHILD SEAT, you’re looking at 4 child seats for a kid’s usage that means spending RM 2000 at least (good ones go for RM 700 EACH). Is that affordable? Of course not! Not when we know much of the cost is in the taxation. Loke should exempt imported child seats from taxation if he is serious about the child’s life. Or else, many will use unapproved child seats just to escape police roadblocks which doesn’t have any bearing on prioritising a child’s life.
lolzz crony seat company will get few hundred RM billion in pocket…
for avoid cronyism , gov should open market for all over the world seat company come to Malaysia, lets the huge competition begin, that time child seat will be cheapest as lower RM50 per unit, not like now few hundred to few thousand per unit.
Enforcement is done when there is a BIG accident when 2 kids are flung out or VVIP’s are involved.
Just look at black tint,car seat belt enforcement…have you seen any the last 6 months? Most of the time,we see the JPJ vehicle stopping vans with foreigners,busy “negotiating” at the road side.
No one give a damn to all these hype on enforcement.Proper enforcements should be done unannounced at regular intervals to nab serious offenders.Mr. Menteri…follow the enforcement team in an unmarked car and see how they do it.
I really hope there is a secondhand market for this.
if gov are to implement this with subsidy, please dont use B40 as guideline, many families are just merely over the line and we’re all struggling. FYI, a good quality child seat is not cheap. Miros guideline maybe can include the list price for the seats, and where to buy a suitable or standard seats to prevent any unnecessary arguments with the enforcement authorities in future.
Since you’ve made it mandatory, you should ensure either affordable child seats or subsidize the cost, and also ban the sales of non approved child seats so as not to mislead users.
The the above age group guide is flawed as the CRS images shown does not accurately reflect what’s the majority actual ECE specifications of CRSs available in the local market that are within reach of most Malaysians. For example over 90% of Group 2 CRSs (listed as 15kg – 25kg) available in Malaysia market can only accommodate kids at a maximum 18kg with it’s 5 point harness. And the remaining less than 10% that can accomodate till 25kg are mostly over rm1000.
And Group 3 backless boosters can be used according to ECE specifications from 15kg and above as opposed to the guide’s 22-36kg.
So do we follow Miros’s guide (which itself supposed to mirror ECE specifications) or actual ECE specifications printed on the CRS manuals and on individual CRS frames?
hahaha…
Seriously…
i have 1 child, and i need to switch the seat from my car to my wife car every day…. morning wife fetch her to school, evening i fetch her back from daycare…
how in the world i can manage that? meaning i need to go to my wife car, switch, go to office… and our offices are 2 different locations!!
meaning i need to get 2 and place in different car?? wtf man… this is no longer rm500 weii
cant imagine those with > 1 children hence > 1 seat and they also need to fetch their children the way i did.
Big deal. How much does one pay for an handphone now?
How much grief and guilt are you willing to shoulder should your child sustain injury or worst, death? Is 1000 a lot to spend? You buy insurance right?
I have 4 child seats for 2 kids. 2 new, 2 hand me downs.
A highend phone is about RM6000 while a low end phone is about RM600, that represents a 5X decrease in affordability value.
A highend child seat is about RM 1000, so can I find an equally safe but lower end child seat at RM 200? No? Why is that so?
beli sports rim, tukar tayar low profile, letak spoiler, lowered kereta, eksos besar dan semua aksesori yg ada di kedai aksesori nak pasang.
Suruh guna utk keselamatan dan nyawa anak pun nak bising.