Orkney’s Road Safety Forum is calling for parents to visit a free car seat clinic in Kirkwall next week, to help combat common mistakes.
At the car seat clinics carried out by the Good Egg Safety campaign across Scotland last year, 54% of car seats were found to be incorrectly fitted.
Locally, experts found problems, most of them minor, with car seats they checked. Slack child harness, incorrect harness height and twisted harnesses were the main mistakes picked up by experts when looking at how children were fitted in the seat.
A slack seat belt and having the carry handle in the wrong position were two common errors seen when checking how the seat had been fitted into the vehicle.
Chair of Orkney’s Road Safety Forum, Councillor Andrew Drever, said: “I’d encourage everyone who transports children to come along to the car seat clinic for free advice on their own car seat and how to fix it safely.
“Most problems are easily fixed and can make a huge difference to the safety and performance of your child’s car seat in the unfortunate case of an accident.”
The Good Egg Safety Car Safety clinics run around the UK each year. This year, the campaign has launched a series of nine weekly videos exploring some of the common car seat mis-steps. These can be viewed on the organisation’s Facebook page.
Councillor Drever added: “I’d urge parents and carers of young children to check back in on the website each week over the next few months, especially if they are unable to come to the clinic.”
The Orkney clinic is will run from 11am to 4pm, on Wednesday 26 July, in the Tesco car park.
