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| Britax Maxway Car Seat |
As part of our deliberations, one question came quickly to the forefront: do we go for a forward or rear facing seat? Here's my thoughts on the matter and why we went for the rear facing Britax Maxway.
What is Extended Rear Facing (ERF)?
Extended rear facing (ERF) is the term used for keeping a child in a rear facing car seat beyond the infant carrier (Group 0+) seat. Group 0+ seats will mostly fit a child up to 13kg in weight, with Group 1 seats beginning to cater for children 9kg and above. Now, I'm talking in weight rather than age here because that is how car seats are designed, and children of the same age will all be different weights. Some people find this quite confusing so to give a rough estimate, a child will generally reach 9kg in weight between the age of 9-12 months and 13 kg at around 12-15 months.
ERF seats will cater for children from 9kg up to 18kg, approximately 4 years of age (Group 1), or up to 25kg, approximately 6 years of age (Group 1/2), depending on the seat. This is instead of them going into a traditional forward facing seat with a harness.
What are the differences in terms of safety?
Frontal impacts are the most common type of crashes seen on the roads. Anyone who has experienced even a minor crash will be able to tell you that, even wearing a seatbelt, you are thrown forwards considerably and this puts immense strain on your back and neck, often resulting in whiplash injuries or similar. Now, as adults, our bone and muscle structure is fully formed and able to withstand much greater stresses than that of a child. This video demonstrates this and explains how keeping a child rear facing reduces the risk of serious injury/death by more than 90%.
Why isn't it the law to keep children rear facing then?
In some countries, including Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, it is already recommended that children are kept rear facing, and there are moves in the United States to follow suit, at least for children up to 2 years of age. In the UK this is not the case, and there is no reason for it not to be, as the biggest factor is that most people are completely unaware of the issue.
What are the barriers to rear facing in the UK?
I have picked out 3 barriers here, there are probably more for some people but these are certainly the ones I found we had to overcome in our decision to buy rear facing for our daughter.
Awareness
As I've briefly touched on, awareness of ERF is a huge issue in the UK and, in my opinion, this is for two reasons: 1) there is simply not enough information disseminated to parents about the subject, which needs addressing at a national level; and 2) parents' reliance on their peers for information rather than professionals, and the unavoidable comparison with others' children. I think this video, which I found courtesy of Osocio, sums this up to perfection.
Now, I have to say I fell foul of this awareness issue with our son, who is now nearly 4. Even being a road safety professional, all be it only for a short time at that point, I had heard very little about ERF when it came to buying his Group 1 seat. It was something we briefly discussed, but dismissed as we just didn't know enough about it. There was also the issue that, at that time, there were very few ERF seats available in the UK, which brings me nicely on to the next barrier.
Availability
It seems absolutely crazy to me that one of the biggest suppliers of ERF car seats, Britax, is actually a British company! For years they were making seats and exporting them to Scandanavia because British parents weren't interested, and those who were had to buy them from Scandanavian retailers! Thankfully, this situation has much improved over the last couple of years and there are now approximately 15 ERF seats available to purchase in the UK from a number of manufacturers. But, and this is quite a big but, there are not many places that stock them and can offer you advice on fitting. I am very lucky that, living in East Anglia, I have the In Car Safety Centre at Milton Keynes, and advice clinics run by Road Safety Officers in Essex and Suffolk but we still ended up travelling over 400 miles in total going back and forward. I'm well aware that other areas of the country are not as well served and would encourage anyone reading this who knows of other places to promote them as widely as possible.
Also important to note here that, as with all seats, not all models will fit all cars/children, so it important to try them out and see what works best for you. We found we had a choice of three that fitted our two cars well, and plumped for the Maxway as our best option overall.
Cost
With the cheapest one we found starting just over £200, and prices rising to over £400 depending on the model you like best, going rear facing is certainly not the cheap option, so if funds are limited you're going to have to consider this one real hard! My personal view is that there is no price anyone could put on my child's safety so it was well worth the money we paid for the Maxway.
What needs to be done?
Well, the most important thing I want people to take away from this is that extended rear facing (ERF) is the way forward to reduce the number of young children killed or injured in car accidents on the UK's roads. If you know people with young children, tell them about it before they buy their child's Group 1 seat (from around 9 months onwards), and support those who are already campaigning for change at a national level here in the UK. I've included some links below to those who I have had contact with, but I'm sure there are plenty more.
I hope you found this useful/informative, and please share it if you did.
Useful links:
The Good Egg Guide to in-car Child Safety
Rear Facing: The Way Forward
The In Car Safety Centre
Safer Kids Rear Face UK
V & C Consultants
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