No child without a child seat: 44% of road accident fatalities were travelling without one

Reducing road deaths is one of the main objectives in road safety. The goal of zero deaths is increasingly being talked about, and the modern applications and safety systems being introduced in cars will help to achieve it. But perhaps the simplest place to start is the most basic: fastening your seatbelt and, most importantly, fastening the seatbelts of the youngest passengers.

Línea Directa Aseguradora Foundation, Pons Foundation, Seur Foundation, Cepsa Foundation and Midas have joined forces to create a road safety campaign that promotes the importance of ensuring the safety of babies and children travelling in a car and, especially, of those children whose families lack the resources to purchase child restraint systems suitable for their age on the same footing as everyone else, that is, to buy the child safety seats that are mandatory for children under 12 to travel in a car.

90 children have died over the last 10 years for not using a CRS suitable for their ageIn Spain, according to the EPA, there are 3.7 million unemployed and 28 per cent of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. This means that “it is often difficult to afford a quality child seat, especially given the difficult economic situation that many families are still going through. Although the situation has improved, there is still a long way to go.” This was the starting point that brought the aforementioned organisations together to promote a road safety campaign raising awareness of the importance of protecting the youngest children when travelling in a car.

44% of children killed in road traffic accidents and 30 per cent of those seriously injured in road traffic accidents were travelling without the mandatory Child Restraint System suited to their age or size, according to DGT data. “90 children have died over the last 10 years for not travelling in their appropriate child seats; the campaign aims to ensure this does not happen again”, says Pere Navarro, the campaign’s promoter and former Director General of Traffic.

The campaign has created a fundraising initiative to enable families facing financial hardship to purchase suitable CRS so that their children can travel safely by car. In collaboration with the five organisations, the book “El semáforo aburrido” has been published, written by Jordi Sierra i Fabra, author of best-selling children’s and young adult literature, a story aimed at children aged 8 to 11 to raise awareness among the youngest about the importance of road safety. The book will be sold on demand through Amazon in e-book format (for €2.99) or in printed paperback (€6.99) until 31 May, the date on which the charity campaign will end.

“We have set ourselves the goal of achieving at least 90 Child Restraint Systems, a number equal to the children who have died on our roads over the last decade for not travelling with their appropriate CRS”, says Fernando Valencia, Director General of the Línea Directa Foundation.

“Prevention and awareness are the best defence against risks, which is why it is necessary to promote initiatives like this one to encourage other areas of road safety”, said Belén Candenas, Operations Director of the Cepsa Foundation. For its part, María Jesús Magro, Director General of the Pons Foundation, highlighted the need to “focus directly on training campaigns for parents, since at least 40% receive help from a professional to fit the seat for the first time and almost 25% buy their first CRS after the baby is born, with hardly any information”.

Ramón Rueda, Director General of Midas Spain, stressed “the importance of promoting this type of initiative to raise awareness among all parents of the importance of ensuring the safety of babies and children inside the vehicle and of generating greater awareness of child protection on the road”.

Finally, Ramón Mayo, President of the SEUR Foundation, highlighted the importance of “helping those children whose families lack the resources to ensure they have the same safety in the car as other children“. Indeed, a SEUR Foundation Evaluation Committee will select the families to receive aid from the funds raised through the sale of the book, from among all the requests received through the form available on its website.