‘Make sure children are in car seat’

“I have three children myself, and I always make sure they are in the car seat,” added Al Salmi. “I see many children jumping around inside their cars, playing and throwing toys around,” he said. “This is very dangerous because the parents, who are driving the cars will be very distracted by these children and could cause an accident.”

Ali Al Barwani is chief executive officer of Oman’s Road Safety As- sociation. In the last 12 months, his organisation have distributed over 300 car seats to new parents, in an attempt to boost awareness on this subject. “The main reason parents don’t put their children in car seats is because of a lack of education,” he revealed. “The bodies of these little children are soft and they are not fully formed. That is why, even if they may not suffer any external injuries, they could have internal bleeding when they have an accident, they may not even know that has happened.” “We have provided car seats in seven places across Oman since August 2016, and hopefully, by next year, we can provide 300 more. We began at the Sultan Qaboos Hospital in Salalah in August 2016, and then distributed more at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital in Muscat,”added Al Barwani.

“Then we went to Royal Hospital and Khoula Hospital, before going to Sohar. After that, we went to Sinaw and Ibra, and we now want to help the more remote areas, such as Duqm, Haima, Musandam and the Masirah Islands.” A Royal Oman Police (ROP) spokesperson was also quick to add to this. “The child seat should be installed behind the front passenger seat, so that the child can get off the car on the side of the platform.