We want all children in our area to be as safe as possible. But sadly, many parents of under 4’s don’t know about the increased safety of rear facing seats. To find out more, read our rear facing feature.
We need your help to spread the word about group 1 rear facing car seats to local mums and dads. Please don’t just assume that someone else will do it. Here is how YOU can help.
Write to your MP
We’d like there to be a change in the legal requirements in the UK with regards to car seats for the under 4’s. In Sweden, children are required to be rear facing until they are 4. As a result of this policy, between July 2006 and November 2007 not a single child under the age of 6 years old was killed in a car crash in Sweden (Source: VTI Sweden). According to the AA’s website, 205 children are injured in car crashes in the UK every year and 21 are killed.
We think your local MP should know about this. We’ve put together an example email that you might want to send to your MP to make them aware of the issue. You can either just copy and paste it into your message, or just write your own.
Local MPs:
Ann Cryer (Labour) – Keighley MP (covers Ilkley and Addingham)
Response from Ann Cryer’s Office: “Ann will be happy to take this up with the Minister responsible for road safety.”
Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrats) – Leeds North West MP (covers Otley and Yeadon)
Philip Davies (Conservative) – Shipley MP (covers Saltaire, Baildon, Menston and Bingley)
Paul Truswell (Labour) – Pudsey MP (covers Yeadon, Guiseley and the High Royds estate)
Response from Paul Truswell: “You raise a number of important questions, and I will take these up with
the Road Safety Minister, Paul Clark MP.”
To find out who your local MP is, you can type in your postcode to the WriteToThem website.
Please let us know if you get a response from your local MP and we will publish it here.
Write to car seat retailers
Many of the large car seat retailers in the UK do not stock group 1 rear facing car seats. This means that they are difficult to get hold of (although see our section about ‘Where to buy‘ for retailers).
We would like you to help us send emails to the big retailers to help them see that there is demand for rear facing seats. We’ve put together an example email that you might want to use to make them aware of the issue. You can either just copy and paste it into your message, or just write your own.
Again, if you get any responses from these (or any other) retailers, please let us know and we will publish them here.
