Child restraint systems and safety education in Romania

One of the major challenges in road safety that we are facing in Romania is the high number of victimization among young passengers (group age 0-14) and main reason why this is happening is the low rate of utilization of child restraint systems (only 26% of children passengers are transported in an age-appropriate child restraint system). Data was obtained through an observational study that we made last year and presented at TUV Conference :Protection of Children in Cars - December 2020. We want to address this challenge by educating future parents and parents as well as children from primary schools and kindergartens regarding correct way of travelling as young passengers as well as by increasing public awareness on this topic by a strong and constant PR campaign promoting child restraint systems and seat-belt use. Decreasing the incidence of serious road accidents in Romania involving child victims is the aim with a target of 0 deaths by 2030, in accordance with Vision Zero, the ambitious European traffic safety project, and to increase the use of car seats from 20% as it is currently to 70% by 2025. We target parents, caregivers, children.

Project activities

If you work together with external partners, list the most important partners and briefly describe their role.

Romanian Road Traffic Police: participation in seminars dedicated to parents, caregivers, future parents -organizing road traffic inspections dedicated to usage of car seats and seat belts among young passengers. Ministry of Transport: included Children Car Safety Foundation initiatives in the Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Strategy for Road Safety for the period 2021 2030 prepared by the Permanent Inter-ministerial Safety Delegation Road.

Please describe the project activities you carried/are carrying out and the time period over which these were implemented.

1. Children's Car Safety "National Caravan" series of itinerant events that include children car safety seminars for parents, first aid seminars, free sessions for testing / installing child car seats. Special experience for parents: frontal impact simulator with unrestrained dummy versus restrained dummy; virtual reality googles to help drivers understand dangerous driving behaviors, such as driving under influence or when a driver is exhausted. 2. Initiation of the annual event: Little Passenger Car Safety Week, in the second week of July and consisting of a series of special actions dedicated to children's car safety: actions carried out in traffic in collaboration with the Bucharest Road Brigade and the Constanta Traffic Police, simulations of impact tests with a child mannequin in the polygon specially arranged at the Titi Aur Academy, webinars for parents in order to explain the notions of car safety for children, testimonial contests for parents who have experience to help others understand the importance of a child car seat in a car accident. 3. Your Children Car Safety Starts from Maternity: free rental of baby shells for new parents when they leave maternity units with their babies. Program already functioning in various cities from Romania (130 baby shells were specially bought for this project) 5. Green for Safety: our environment commitment: parents can bring used car seats to our Children Car safety centers. These used car seats are then transformed into baby furniture: baby shells in highchairs and seats for older children in gaming seats. In December, all these transformed objects will be auctioned at a charitable Gala and money raised will be offered to Children Trauma Centers where children injured in road traffic accidents are treated.

List the actions you carried/are carrying out

Date

Wednesday, 25 May, 2022

Evaluation

What has been the effect of the activities?

Parents understand better the role of a car seat in protecting young passengers and as a result of the educational and sustained media campaigns, we have observed an increase in the usage of car seats for transporting children since 2019 to 2021 from 24% to 30% (based on questionnaires filled in by the parents).

Please briefly explain why your initiative is a good example of improving road safety.

The National Children Car Safety Caravan has become a national phenomenon in Romania, targeting parents throughout whole Romanian territory and offering free children car safety classes and instruction on how to install and use correctly an appropriate car seat for each for age group, free first aid training, as well as educational experiences, such as with frontal crash simulators with unrestrained dummy versus restrained dummy, dangerous driving behaviors such as driving under influence or with fatigue. Our program for renting free baby shells to new parents in order to educate them from day one that the child must be transported only in this way is already present in more than 11 major cities from Romania. Also, our green project, recycling used car seats by transforming them into children's furniture and organizing a charitable Gala where these objects are auctioned and the money raised being offered to Children Trauma Centers in Romania where victims of traffic accidents are treated, has had a very promising start and over 200 car seats have already been collected by us.

How have you shared information about your project and its results?

Yes, visit links.