Children's safety can't wait

Gerry Brownlee and Simon Bridges should stop twiddling their thumbs over children’s safety on our roads and bring New Zealand into line with international standards on child restraint use in vehicles, says Labour’s Transport Safety spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway.

"Road Safety Week is the perfect time for the Government to announce they are at last making children’s safety a priority.  Changes to New Zealand's child seat regulations are long overdue and children are being needlessly injured as a result of the Government's inaction.

"According to the Government's own Safer Journeys strategy, published in 2010, New Zealand has one of the highest child road fatality rates in the OECD. This is in part due to poor child restraint use and regulation.

"Despite knowing this, the Government has done nothing to change child restraint regulations since the report was published. It is estimated that every year the Government fails to act, one child is killed and five are seriously injured.

"Currently, only children aged under 5 must travel in an approved car seat. However, international best practice is that height rather than age be used to determine which children are required by law to travel in a car seat. Safer Journeys suggests the height should be set at 148 cm.

"This is an easy change for the Government to make. The evidence to support doing so is robust and the social and economic benefits undeniable. Why on earth are they sitting on their hands?

"Let's start Road Safety Week with a positive announcement from the Government,” said Iain Lees-Galloway.