KUALA LUMPUR: Making child car seats compulsory is not something that can be successfully implemented before a social impact study is carried out.
Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) director-general Prof Dr Wong Shaw Voon said there were many factors to be considered and researched.
“We have to study and see if people can afford it, and if child seats can be fitted into all our vehicles. What about large families with small cars?” he asked.
He said that Malaysians had their own travelling culture and it was common to see families of five or more crammed into one car.
“There may be multiple-pronged problems in making child seats a requirement.
“We have to overcome the hurdles and see how we can help those who may not be able to afford them,” he added.
Dr Wong, however, said parents need not wait until they were compelled by law to install child car seats.
“The awareness is there and we find more and more parents using car seats. This is a positive sign,” he said, adding that awareness programmes needed to be continued.
He pointed out that parents should also understand the different standards of car seats and how cheap versions could endanger their children’s lives.
He said a social impact study should be conducted as soon as possible before the safety plan was implemented.
Calls to put children in safety seats in vehicles have been renewed since the May 2 accident on the Duta-Ulu Kelang Expressway (DUKE), where six-month-old Nur Firuza Annisa Fairuz was killed together with her parents.
Just three days later, a nine-month-old baby died in an accident on the North-South Expressway.
Both children, believed not to be belted up in car seats, were thrown out of the vehicles they were in.
