Last Monday was the first year anniversary of the changes to child restraint law that promotes safety to children passengers. However, the lives of children are still endangered due to non-compliance and inconsistent reinforcement on the side of the motorists and proper authorities.

In 2005, 326 children aged 0-11 died and some are severely injured due to vehicular accidents like car crash. For example, in a 30mph crash, an unrestrained or falsely retrained child can be thrown with a force of 30 to 60 times more than their body weight. These facts show how important child restraints are in vehicles especially in cases of accidents.

The positive impact of the law, child safety is being undermined said Brake, the national road safety charity. Strong police action is required for proper enforcement of the legislation, but sadly, police actions and campaigns greatly vary. A penalty of £30 is supposed to be fined to any driver caught with children not properly restrained.

According to the police, they lack the resources to strongly enforce the law. The number of Police officers had been declining and resulting to increased traffic volume.

Brake is concerned that if the law is not properly enforced, risk for children to injuries and deaths related to vehicular accidents will increase.

However, there are also some circumstances that children can legally travel without the car restraints. For children below three years old, can ride a vehicle without appropriate child restraint if none is available. For children between three and eleven years old, they can travel if a child seat isn't available in a taxi, a journey is short and in unexpected circumstances, two occupied child restraints prevent fitment of a third. 

Brake is also calling the attention of parents to do something about this matter for the protection of their children.

 "Most parents want to do the right thing, but some are clearly in need of advice on the right way to fit their child's restraint. The Government needs to close the loopholes which still allow children to travel without a restraint and make sure that the law is enforced. It must be made crystal clear to parents that children traveling unrestrained are at huge risk of being killed or injured in a crash. They deserve to be protected." said Cathy Keeler, head of communications at Brake.