The best way to avoid being killed in an accident is to avoid getting into an accident in the first place.

SOME great news the other day: laws mandating the use of child seats in cars in Malaysia may be implemented. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

And, it might happen in 2019. Or perhaps later, but not earlier. Woo!

By this time, most parents may be right in thinking that this law will not affect their child so much, as perhaps one yet to be conceived. Perhaps their grandchildren even. Why the delay? The issue of making the use of child seats mandatory arose in the light of recent accidents involving children, including one on the DUKE highway where the child was thrown out of the car window. A child restraint system may or may not have saved his life, but it definitely would have improved his chances.

In a recent press conference, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said child seats were relatively costly and the Government was taking account of this to avoid socio- economic repercussions, especially among low income earners. He also said that public awareness must be prioritised and improved first as many parents were lackadaisical about the use of child seats.

But surely – and here I draw a deep breath – possibly the best way to educate the public is to force them to learn about it by passing a law. What are the statistics? In the US, in 2004, among children under five years old, an estimated 451 lives were saved by child restraint use. And of these, 413 were associated with the use of child safety seats ( the remainder were with the use of adult seat belts).

Child seats save lives. Child safety seats can reduce fatal injury by 71% for infants and by 54% for toddlers, ages one to four. End of story.

Except that it might not be. From the same source, there were 495 children under five years of age who were fatalities and an estimated 173 ( 35%) of them were totally unrestrained. Which means that the 65% who were restrained still lost their lives.

It seems to me that driver safety is a holistic problem. The best way to avoid being killed in an accident is to avoid getting into an accident in the first place.

We have a plethora of laws designed to increase car safety, but most of them seem to be ignored. Cars on highways frequently exceed speed limits, and not much is thought of when people overtake on the left.

Take as an example something very related to our topic. Seat belts are now mandatory in Malaysia, but do people comply?

A local study in 2004 ascertained that only about three- quarters of drivers wore a seat belt, and about half the front passengers did so.

According to researchers from the University of Chicago, a seat belt costs only US$ 25 to install. In a year, the estimate is that it costs US$ 30,000 for every life saved, compared to airbags which cost about US$ 1.8mil for every life saved.

What the Government has done this year is similar in potential impact. Beginning Jan 1, all vehicle manufacturers were required to adhere to Isofix, which stands for International Standard for Attachment Points For Child Safety Seats In Passenger Cars.

I assume installing these attach- ment points are not very expensive. But what’s the value of them if parents do not take advantage of them – even if they are well- meaning ones that use child seats?

Do you know what the real irony is? Although the Government says they don’t want to implement the law because the people are not ready, the reason why all this has been put into action is because of a law.

Malaysia is a member of the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations established about 50 years ago to streamline regulations related to vehicles, resulting in benefits to road safety, environmental protection and trade. It is this World Forum that has laid down guidelines on which laws countries should enact to improve safety, and mandating the use of child seats is one of them.

So if you write it down as something you really must do, it provides impetus for people to follow it. But I presume how long it takes to implement the law depends on the individual members. The Deputy Minister of Transport gave a slightly different reason why it takes four years to implement the law.

“This includes the process of advocacy for the public to receive their feedback within two years, in addition to another two years for trial,” Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told reporters.

Here’s a crazy idea. Let’s just implement the law anyway. If you get caught transporting your child without a safety restraint ( or worse, holding them in the front seat with your arms around them), then you should get an on- the- spot fine – say, RM50.

However, if you go to a course where you learn how to install child seats, you can get a RM50 voucher off the purchase of your next child seat. Assuming not everybody who gets caught will go to the course, the system could ( in theory) pay for itself.

The principle is that we should use child seats in our cars.

It seems bizarre to be arguing about this, I feel. Statistically speaking, a child seat does not reduce the chances of surviving an accident at all, and the only reason it may not improve is because they’re improperly used. So now that cars are being made safer for our children, let’s take advantage of this and make driving safer for them, too.