The Safe Seat Campaign

In light of the less than stellar child car restraint usage rate in Singapore, The Safe Seat campaign was established with the aims to raise awareness and encourage parents to use child car restraints all the time as child car restraints can save a child’s life during an accident. This is the first-ever campaign that focuses solely on child passenger safety. Child car restraints have to be height, weight, and age appropriate to ensure that the child is safely protected. The Safe Seat is supported by Automobile Association of Singapore (AA Singapore), KKH, Taxi Baby Co., and Car Club.

In a recent survey with 513 parents by 4 undergraduates from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), they found that while 78.4% of parents own child car restraints, only 55% use them all the time. To improve child passenger safety on Singapore roads, these 4 undergraduates have embarked on Singapore’s first- ever campaign encouraging parents with children aged 0–10 to secure their children in child car restraints all the time.

Despite the 2012 revision to the Road Traffic Act mandating passengers below the height of 1.35m to be secured in child car restraints when traveling in vehicles, child car restraint usage in Singapore is significantly lower compared to other developed countries like Australia with over 90% usage rates. According to Singapore law, first-time offenders may be fined up to SG$1,000 or jailed up to three months.

Top reasons for parents’ non-compliance include their children’s discomfort and reluctance to be secured in child car restraints. Conversely, families who do not own cars tend not to own and use child car restraints, with many citing the additional inconvenience of carrying the child car restraint around. The campaign has leveraged on social media platforms to persuade parents on the need for using child car restraints at all times.

Through educational content from experts and personal tips from fellow parents, the team aspires to address the common misconceptions of child car restraints while highlighting behavior and actions that parents can take to overcome the barriers preventing them from using child car restraints consistently.