Kid gloves
Volvo Cars has produced a manual describing how pregnant women and children of different ages can travel as safely as possible in cars. Available soon from dealers, its findings are based on the company's studies of 36,000 road accidents involving more than 60,000 people, says spokeswoman Maria Bohlin. The manual shows that some motorists forget that children need special protection.
A child's head is big and heavy relative to its body, says Lotta Jakobsson, child safety specialist at the Volvo Cars Safety Centre. The head of a nine-month-old baby accounts for 25 per cent of its body weight, compared with 6 per cent in an adult, she says. A child's neck and neck vertebrae aren't fully developed and very different from those of an adult.
In a frontal collision, the head of a forward-facing occupant is thrown forward with violent force, Volvo says. An adult's neck can withstand this stress relatively well, but that of a small child can't. Since frontal collisions are the most common and usually the most violent, it's important that small children are seated facing the rear (left).
'[Volvo's] studies show clearly that rear-facing child seats offer a very high degree of protection,' says Jakobsson.
The marque advises parents not to face children forward until they've outgrown their rear-facing seat and have reached the age of three.