Do you need a car seat in hong kong?

thanks, i'm beyond the need for it now... my kids are almost 6 and almost 8. i was just curious as even at 1 year, my kids legs were getting jammed up when they were facing backwards.
 
carang said:
thanks, i'm beyond the need for it now... my kids are almost 6 and almost 8. i was just curious as even at 1 year, my kids legs were getting jammed up when they were facing backwards.
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I know. Past it as well. Apparently the jamming is the least of the concerns ...
 
I got my sister to send a rear facing one from the UK as well, and my 2 year old's legs were getting a bit cramped from it all. Although he became terrible bored looking out the back of the car so we decided to turn him around, and now he is having much more fun.

HK's traffic laws are mind boggling. Just off the topic a bit, I got pulled over by a cop when I was seven months pregnant, and he told me it was not necessary for pregnant drivers to wear a seat belt. I was like, what?! I understand the reason behind it, but surely it's more dangerous to drive without one!
 
Liquorice said:
The dummy's arms are just loose whereas I would always wrap my arms around the baby too, and wouldn't you instinctively grab your baby to protect it in an accident? Obviously your arms alone wouldn't be enough to stop the baby flying forward, but I wonder if baby bjorn + arms would make a difference? Or is that just a bad grasp of physics?
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I think it is bad grasp of reality. The fact is you rarely get enough notice of an accident to take evasive action. Having been involved in a medium speed (50 kph) accident a couple of years ago - even as an alert driver I had no time to warn my passengers when someone pulled out directly in front of me. I swerved and saved the other drivers life by clipping his neariside wing instead of hitting the drivers door full on. However this was over in a fraction of a second.

Fortunately we were all belted up and the worst injury was extensive bruising and a broken chest bone. Both cars were write-offs though.

Had my daughter been alive and in a sling/mothers arms I had little doubt she would have suffered serious, possibly fatal injuries. Accidents can happen any time and almost by definition without enough warning.
 
NewDad is right. People assume they will instinctively brace themselves in a crash. You won't. By the time you're aware of the impact it will already have happened (unless you happen to be looking in the right direction and aware of what might be about to happen). You almost certainly wouldn't have time to hold tight to your baby or be able to keep hold of them. Plus there is a risk of your chin smashing down on the top of their head if they are in your lap.

MTRs don't travel fast enough for this to be an issue. Worst case is your baby falls over/off your lap and gets some bad bruising. If you're really concerned about MTRs just avoid the very front/back sections as they would be most effected in a collision.
 
Liquorice said:
To be honest, I used to use my Baby Bjorn in a taxi relatively often. I thought that it was relatively good protection so watching qwert12's video is quite interesting. Though I wonder how much difference it would make in a crash if you had your arms around your baby as well as wearing the Bjorn? The dummy's arms are just loose whereas I would always wrap my arms around the baby too, and wouldn't you instinctively grab your baby to protect it in an accident? Obviously your arms alone wouldn't be enough to stop the baby flying forward, but I wonder if baby bjorn + arms would make a difference? Or is that just a bad grasp of physics?
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NewDad, Aquarian, Honkeyblues and Penguinsix all have some very good advice. There is just no way you would be able to hold onto a baby, it wouldn't happen instinctively and physics wouldn't allow it. Take a look at the posts on the first page of this thread re: what happens in a crash and how strong the force is even at a low speed. There is also the issue with your head whipping down onto the baby's skull.
 
Aquarian said:
MTRs don't travel fast enough for this to be an issue.
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MTRs do travel fast enough. The speed going to the airport is 135Km/hour - this is faster than the traffic on the road is legally allowed to take, 110Km/hour.

And I'm sure if there was an accident that babies would be flying all over just as in the car accidents when babies are not in car seats. But having said that the MTR is just about the safest way to travel in Hong Kong.
 
That is the maximum speed of the Airport Express. That's not the average speed of an MTR train. The average speed of the MTR is 33km/h.
 
Gracey said:
So what is the best way to transport a baby in a taxi?
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If by "best" you mean 'safest', the only safe way is in a car seat until the baby grows to a child big enough to wear a seatbelt by him/herself. There are no other options that will protect a baby in the event of a crash.
 
Also, I don't mean to sound like the car seat police, but did have a terrible experience with a dog in a taxi which crashed a while ago. A friend and I were headed to Pokfulam with her spaniel (roughly the size of a 1 year old). Dog, which was being held on her lap, went flying into the windscreen, broke its back amongst other injuries and subsequently died. The crash happened at under 50km/h and we knew it was going to happen a second or two before impact. We were also pretty beaten up just from the force of being thrown forward into the seal belt. I shudder to think about what would have happened had it been a baby in the car.
 
Bracing yourself in a crash is irrelevant. Holding or not holding a baby is irrelevant. In a 30mph crash, you are thrown forward with a weight 30 to 60 times your own body weight. Could you hold on to a baby that suddenly goes from weighing 10kg to 300kg? Or do you think outstretched arms or braced legs could prevent the weight of your own body (x30) being thrown around the car?

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/safety-regulatory-devices/child-car-seat.htm
 
Most parents blindly go and buy seats hoping that it will keep their kids "safe".
Its advisable that parents do a bit of research on effectiveness of seats and belts. Once you do so, most will quickly come to the realization that belts and seats dont give as much protection as we are led to believe and the only good way to prevent injury and death is to not put a baby in a car at all; as this may not be practical, minimise it as much as possible.

A couple of links to explore :
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluate/806890.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_on_child_carseats.html
 
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