General info.........

This is where you will find all the basics!

The importance of using a "child’s car seat" correctly can not be over stated and indeed it is now law in the U.K. that children use a seat (or suitable restraint) until they reach the age of 11 or achieve the height of 1.35m.

 There are a few exceptions (such as riding in a back seat of a taxi) but in reality when a child is in a car they SHOULD be in a child’s car seat.  Why? well because accidents happen and surely you want to protect your family as best as you can? (As a quick point, road traffic accidents don't really "happen" they are almost always caused by people.. making mistakes.)

 The weight of your child is the sole determining factor in deciding what type of "child’s car seat" is suitable. In our web site we have spilt this into "stages" as we feel parents will relate to this term best, but in reality they are normally called "groups".

 Group 0 or 0+ car seats are "first stage" car seats or car carrycots which are used from birth until baby reaches the weight of either 9kg/20lbs (for group 0) or 13kg/28lbs (for group 0+). As a rough guide most babies outgrow their first car seat at about one year of age but it can vary quite widely.

Often these "child car seats" are known as "infant carriers" and invariably infant carriers also fit onto pushchairs making a product known as "Travel Systems".  It seems very strange to us that the law demands a pushchair can only be sold "from birth" if the seat can be positioned flat, yet infant carriers can be legally sold positioning a new born at a steep angle! 

We know of one retailer who goes out of their way not to sell travel systems preferring to sell a more traditional style pram with a fixed lie flat car carrycot which the consumer has no need to constantly remove from the car.  Quite simply mum pops baby out of the pram and into the car carrycot. Easy!

Infant carriers are ALWAYS rear facing when fitted into the car and can not be fitted into any seat in the car which has an active air bag.

Within group 0/0+ there are also available some carrycots which are strong enough to be used in car just like an infant carrier.

As baby grows and reaches the weight of 9kg/20lbs they are then transferred into a forward facing "child’s car seat" known as a "group 1" car seat.  These seats are suitable up until the child reaches the weight of 18kg/40lb and as a rough guide you are looking at about 4 years of age.

As an overlap product for the third stage there are two groups of child car seats known as "group 2" and "group 3"

Group 2 car seats can be used for kids who weigh from 15kg/33lb (normally about 3 years of age) up to 25kg/55lb whilst group 3 car seats go from 22kg/48lb up to 36kg/79lbs. These seats are often called either "high back booster seats" or just "booster seats".

We want to make it very clear. Our view is that all children should use "High Back Booster Seats".......and that all booster seats without a high back should be illegal to use.  These products offer virtually no protection from side impact accidents and pretty much offer the same safety benefits as a child sitting on a phone directory! 

Some "child car seats" span two or possibly three groups, these are known as "combination seats".  As a rule we do not like these types of seats, as they tend to be a "compromise" but they should not always be discounted. If we suggest a "Best Buy" combination seat we show it in the stage we feel it performs best.

Now let’s get legal.

BY LAW all new "car seats" supplied by a retailer MUST comply with a standard known as "R44".  This standard is in fact a United Nations standard and is adopted pretty much all over Europe.  Over the years there have been some amendments to the standard the most recent of which is known as "0/4" so the latest standard is.......R44/04. As part of  R/44 basic user instructions must be printed on the car seat. Also the seat belt routeing must be clear. Rear facing (infant carriers) have a routeing shown in blue. The routeing for forward facing seats must be in red. 

There are "other" standards and tests available to test child car seats. Often these are used by third party organisations who allege that "their" testing methods are superior to the official tests.

We do not accept this, though we agree they are published with the intention to help drive up standards. 

Car seat manufacturers build child "car seats" to a standard for a reason............because governments across Europe believe it is best.   Third party tests may well be "more severe" in certain testing criteria but in our experience this is often at the expense of something just as important which gets totally ignored. 

We believe there are a few "golden rules" when buying a child's car seat.

1. Never use a infant carrier in a car seat that has a active airbag. On some models of cars airbags can be disabled.
2. Never buy (or accept as a gift) a second hand car seat unless you are absolutely certain it has neither been in a accident or has been dropped.
3. Try to avoid using a "base" for a infant carrier if the car you are putting it in has a deep sloping seat, (see our section for stage 1).
4. In the past two years some child car seats have been designed to use a system called Isofix (see below). Take great care to check that your car can be used with any child car seat you may intend to buy, especially Isofix ones, as many parents have purchased these types of seat only to discover they were not safe in the car they were purchased for.
5. Read the instructions and if there is anything you do not understand, check it out!
6. Unless you are absolutely certain a particular car seat fits into your car safely and you know for sure how to fit it, do not buy it on the web, see our section "Recommended Fitters".

 What is Isofix?

Isofix is a system inbuilt into the rear seats of many cars designed to "anchor" by way of metal brackets Isofix compatible child car seats.  The idea is great except that to anchor anything properly the laws of physics requires three anchorage points and the Isofix system has only two!  A third point is achieved by a secondary device such as a leg or tether strap but this is dependent on car. In practice therefore Isofix car seats are not the total answer though we do accept on occasion they can work very well. Isofix car seats often have great "crash test" results but these results are taken in the lab and are not accurate for all cars.

 In "real life" we believe seat belts are often the best and here is the reason why.    In an accident a modern seat belt is designed to stretch. The amount it stretches will vary and is dependent on numerous factors including kinetic energy.

 As a very rough guide however if a driver do not wear a seat belt the force of hitting the cars steering wheel at 30 mph can be as high as 50 times their own body weight. A seat belt that do not stretch will reduce this figure to 30 times the drivers body weight but a seat belt that stretches reduces the figure still further to 20 times the drivers body weight.

And this is our point..... Isofix brackets DO NOT stretch, so whilst at first sight they may give great "crash test" results in the lab there is significant differences in testing with crash dummies than to actual accidents with real live children.  There is one exclusion from this general statement. The "group 1" Jane Exo child car seat has a pneumatic shock absorption system to overcome these issues. (See Recommended Stage 2 Car Seats).

Consequently, we do not believe laboratory crash test results are the best way to gauge how good (or how bad) a car seat is. The most important factors are using the right seat and fitting it correctly.

We believe it is wrong of magazines to publish crash test results to members of the public who quite naturally do not understand the full facts about how the tests are (controversially) compiled. We do believe however video showing a bad seat is very useful as parents can see for themselves how a really bad seat performs.

 A crash test result is very useful to industry professionals, but in our view only form part of what makes a great childs car seat.   

What is "a base"?

A base is normally (but not always) used for infant carriers. By design infant carriers can sometimes be a bit of a pain to fit into the car and some manufacturers have designed "bases" which are fixed into the car, either by way of Isofix brackets or conventional three point seat belts. The idea is that the bases stay in the car and the infant carrier then simply "locks" into the base. The problem with many bases is that some are not as easy to use as they should be. Additionally, they can sometimes affect the angle of a infant carrier and make the sitting angle more acute. As a norm a base will give a better crash test result but again sceptics will argue that some of the crash tests are flawed.

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