Held at the Citta Mall branch of Julia Gabriel Centre here, the event marked the start of a six-month long programme where BMW Group Malaysia will be visiting selected kindergartens and Montessori centres nationwide to raise awareness and galvanise action for more responsible on-the-road and in-car safety practices with parents and their children.
The programme kicked off at the Julia Gabriel Centre with a week-long Traffic Safety Programme where a series of road safety themed activities and learnings are incorporated into the syllabus for the Julia Gabriel Centre children and their parents.
Hwong speaking on child seat safety issues to parents and the media today.
The association's child passenger safety consultant, May Hwong, said: “Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death and injury to babies and young children. While events leading up to the car swerving sharply, braking suddenly or colliding may be unavoidable, the outcome of how your child survives it can be. Your child must be properly restrained in a safety approved child car seat while traveling in the car, even if it is for short trips down the road.”
Apart from the initial collision in an accident, two other collisions also take place, she said. They are human collision as the accident victim continues moving to hit against the cabin parts even when the car has stopped. And there is an internal collision when vital organs in the body collide with the skeletal frame and other hard parts of the body, which could caused internal injuries leading to death.
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Buckling children in age- and size-appropriate child car seats, booster seats, and seat belts reduces the risk of serious and fatal injuries. Child car seats reduce the risk of death to infants by 71% and to toddlers by 54% in passenger vehicles, while booster seats reduce the risk of serious injury by 45% for children aged 4-8 years old when compared with seat belt use alone.
Hwong said car seats of acceptable standards retail from RM300 to RM3,000.
The association also held a child restraint demonstration with ISOFIX technology which makes the seat safer by eliminating the risk of it being incorrectly fitted in the vehicle. Additionally, a child restraint “health check” for families with car seats or booster seats was conducted to ensure appropriate seat use and installation.
Three child seats can fit into the second row of the BMW 2 Series Gran Tourer.
“The BMW Safety 360° program reflects our commitment to view safety and responsibility from the complete view of technology, behaviour and action,” said BMW Group Malaysia corporate communications head Sashi Ambi.
The first edition of the BMW Safety 360° program tackled motorcyclist safety while the issue of child restraints in cars was highlighted the following year.
“This year, we are continuing with our work from last year and we want to speak directly to parents and children because we believe that they are the group that urgently needs to be reached out to when raising awareness on road safety issues, particularly on those related to children,” said Sashi.
The week-long Traffic Safety programme held at Julia Gabriel Centre includes the following: Monday – What’s on the Road? (a visual lesson); Tuesday – Little Messengers (colouring activity); Wednesday – Stop, Look, and Listen (role-playing activity); Thursday – We Hold Hands (arts and crafts activity); Friday – My Car Seat (play and learn activity); Saturday – Seat belt experiment (practical experiment).
