VIDEO: ISOFIX Child Seat Installation Demo

The importance of child safety seats is often preached upon, but sadly seldom practiced in our country. Every day on the road, we still see too many people who do not buckle up on the move along with kids seated on the laps of adults.

You may think the strength of your arms is sufficient to hold your child in place during a collision, but as the laws of physics would have it, in a 50km/h collision, a 10kg is thrown forward with a force equivalent to a 300kg projectile. Good luck holding on to that.

Statistics indicate that child seats reduce the risk of death by 71% among infants and 54% among toddlers in passenger vehicles. Bigger kids aged 4-8 years old can have their chances of suffering serious injury in a crash reduced by 45% when strapped into booster seats as opposed to merely relying on the seatbelt.

The necessity of child seat usage in cars is therefore not in dispute, though there remains the question of proper installation; a poorly-installed child seat is as effective as not having a child seat.

This is where the usefulness of ISOFIX mounts come in. By providing standardized mounting points and having the seat locked directly to the vehicle’s chassis, ISOFIX provides parents with a child safety seat solution that is safe, secure, and easy to install.

We are not dismissing non-ISOFIX seats, however. A properly-installed non-ISOFIX seat can be just as effective in a collision; albeit without the convenience of just being able to snap all latches with an audible click.

In our effort to spread further awareness on the importance of child safety seats, Carlist.my has teamed up with Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Malaysia to produce a video demonstrating the installation procedure of ISOFIX child seats.

In the video, this writer had a crack at installing a child seat himself. Guiding him in his efforts were Ms May Hwong, a consultant of CPS Malaysia, who gave feedback and highlighted common mistakes in the installation process. The video was filmed with the writer not previously having any practice in installing a child seat.

The newly-formed CPS Malaysia is a coalition of various individuals and organizations with the common goal of championing the agenda of child safety through various programmes and activities. Through these activities, the organization aims to increase awareness of the subject among Malaysian parents.

Making a special contribution to the video was BMW Group Malaysia, which provided the video's filming venue in the company's own training centre, a demo vehicle, as well as three sizes of child seats. This collaboration is in line with the company’s active stance in promoting child safety as part of its Safety 360 campaigns.

BMW Group Malaysia had kicked off this year’s iteration of its Safety 360 campaign earlier this year at the Julia Gabriel centre in Citta Mall. Next up, the six-month campaign continues at the Cooler Lumpur festival that will be held in Publika this coming weekend on 10-11 September 2016.