CHILD CAR SEATS NOW COMPULSORY BY LAW
A new regulation to the National Road Traffic Act, effective 1 May 2015, not only obliges parents to buckle up their children, but compels them to use proper, appropriately-sized seats for children up to the age of three.
In a reported 80% of motor vehicle accident cases treated at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, the children injured were not wearing seatbelts. Hector Eliott, chief director of the Western Cape’s Safely Home campaign and Road Safety Co-Ordination, said that children not properly restrained in age-appropriate child car seats are typically flung out of vehicles on the impact of a collision, which resulted in horrific and often fatal injuries which would have been prevented had they been safely strapped into a car seat.
Another often ignored and perhaps lesser known law already in effect, is that all backseat passengers are obliged by law to wear a seatbelt.
Law enforcement agents and parenting groups have welcomed the new law.