When can children use regular seat belts?

Every parent wants their child to be safely secured in the car, but understanding how to do that with the right child seat for the age of your child isn’t always easy.

Road trauma statistics suggest this is an area that can have poor outcomes too, if the worst should happen. When children are involved in road fatalities or injuries, it is primarily because of incorrect child seat size or fitment, according to the key Victorian road safety body, the Transport Accident Commission (TAC).

Dr David Young, the TAC’s Acting Manager, Road Safety Research, Insights and Evaluation, explains. “In our trauma stats, we don’t see a particular manufacturer or child restraint failing numerous times,” he says. “What we do see as the most common theme, if things go wrong, is that the seats weren’t fitted appropriately or weren’t appropriate for the child at the time.”

While Dr Young acknowledges the complexity involved, he says there is a solution. “This area of child restraints is extremely complex. So it’s not surprising that people are confused about what they should or shouldn’t do.

“Fortunately, there is an absolute wealth of resources to help parents navigate this really tricky landscape.”

Dr Young strongly recommends making the most of the numerous support programs available, such as Victoria’s Safe Seats Safe Kids program.

“My first recommendation is to go to talk to the professionals, the child restraint fitters, about the decisions that parents or carers are making, and whether the restraints that parents or carers have or are about to purchase are appropriate for the children,” he says.

Many states have free child restraint checking programs, where parents can go and get their child restraint fitted or checked for free.

As Dr Young explains, child restraints are a legal requirement. “It starts with the road rules – like any standard or rule, they are the minimum standards,” he says.

Children travelling in a vehicle in Australia must have the appropriate seat and/or restraint by law.

“A child will graduate through three different stages of using a child restraint,” continues Dr Young. “These are: rearward-facing restraints/baby capsules; forward-facing restraints; and finally, booster seats. A popular option is the convertible seat, which can be a rearward-facing seat that can be easily converted to forward facing when the child is ready. There are also forward-facing restraints with a harness that can be converted into a booster that is used with the seatbelt. A newer type of forward-facing restraint is also available that has an inbuilt harness for older children and can be used in place of a booster.”

Both ISOFIX and non-ISOFIX seats are legal (always check that the seat has an Australian Standards sticker to be sure), but the ISOFIX seat type is only suitable with cars equipped with ISOFIX mounting points.

Australian road rules about children in cars are quite specific. While it’s worth checking the current rules in your state on the relevant government website, Dr Young describes the rules as they apply in Victoria. “From birth to six months, children need to travel in a rear-facing child restraint; from six months to four years, in a rear-facing child restraint or a forward-facing restraint fitted with an inbuilt harness.

“The type of restraint being used does depend on the age and the size of the child, so even though the road rules have broad categories, there are quite a number of different devices that exist that a child might use or transition across in that period of time.

“The most important thing is that they start with rearward facing,” Dr Young continues.

“For very young infants, rearward facing is the best and safest for them, with an adequately fitting restraint. Then they make a transition to forward facing when they’re big enough and once they’re strong enough to hold their head and manage slightly better the crash forces that might occur if something goes wrong on the road.

“In terms of the law, from four to seven years, they need to travel in a forward-facing harness, or a booster seat. We don’t recommend a booster for that age, however, unless the child is exceptionally fast-growing, or large for their age and well-developed in terms of their strength.

“It’s extremely rare that a child would be large enough to be sitting in a booster seat at four years old,” Dr Young states.

“Beyond that, we have children aged seven years all the way to 16. This is an interesting one, as I don’t think many parents know that they should be considering booster seats for young teenagers. That’s the age range where a child can be travelling in either a booster seat or just a seatbelt.

“Again, it comes down to the size of the child in terms of whether they should be transitioning to a seatbelt. It can be a lot of pressure on parents at this age.”

Note that while every child is different in how quickly they grow and at what age, many children do not have a torso tall enough to safely wear an adult seatbelt until they’re between 10 to 12 years old. Children aren’t ready to use adult seatbelts until they are able to pass the five-step test (see below). As a guide, parents can use their child’s height as an indicator of when they can undertake the five-step test. Typically, children who are 145cm tall are ready to undertake the test.

The age ranges set out in the road rules are the minimums, and the safest thing is to continue using a child car seat until they have grown out of it. All child restraints and boosters now have shoulder height markers to show the size range and indicate whether the seat is suitable for the child.

The TAC says that the best way to find out if your child has outgrown their booster seat is to use what is known as the five-step test. That is, if the child’s back is flat against the seat back, their knees are bent over the seat edge, the seatbelt sits across the middle of the child’s shoulder, the seatbelt sits low across hips and touches their thighs, and the child can sit comfortably for the whole trip – then they are ready to use the car’s adult seatbelts without a booster.

“It is a tricky process to make the call on when the child should begin using an adult seatbelt,” says Dr Young.

“They could be quite motivated by what their friends are doing and they can put a lot of pressure on their parents. There are going to be many children who are not ready to move out of the booster seat when they turn seven.”

Older children are often sensitive about attending a child restraint fitting station to check if their booster seat is still required. If you are facing flat-out refusal, Dr Young suggests even taking just the car and booster seat (when your child is at school, for example), and a recent photo of your child secured in the seat to show the experts.

“They are really good at doing what they can with what they have,” adds Dr Young.

It’s illegal to use an overseas-model child restraint or seat and unsafe to use models over 10 years old. Never use a restraint that has been in a vehicle crash even if the child wasn’t in the seat. Any belt fraying or cracks in the plastic body and the restraint or seat mean it should no longer be used.

Dr Young recommends looking at online resources such as childcarseats.com.au. The site is an initiative of the Child Restraint Evaluation Program (CREP), a consortium of government agencies and Kidsafe, who share a common interest in improving safety for children travelling in vehicles.

“It’s a really good one to navigate through the process of trying to work out what seat is right for you, and how it performs when involved in a crash,” he says.

Dr Young neatly summarises the situation with child restraints this way: “Child restraints is a hard area to navigate by yourself – seek advice, as you really don’t want to leave the safety of your children up to chance.”