The two-week campaign, run by the Dunedin SafeKids coalition and police, checked 147 child restraints. Only 44 (30%) were found to be installed and used correctly.
Cars were stopped in car parks and near schools and playgrounds in order to get the message out about how a child should be restrained.
Plunket Otago and Southland area manager Barb Long said the main issues were loose harnesses, meaning the child was not securely held in the restraint; the seat belt was not threaded through the restraint correctly or was threaded through too loosely; and locking clips required for some restraints to hold them firmly in place were not being used.
Many people had bought seats, but had not sought help to get them installed correctly, she said.
Safekids coalition chairman and ACC injury prevention consultant Andy Redfearn said the result was not surprising and "sadly" reflected numbers seen across the country.
He was shocked to sometimes see seats put in so badly that the children would have been at real risk if the car had crashed. Those people often did not seem to care, he said.
Sergeant Tania Baron, of the Dunedin strategic traffic unit, echoed this sentiment. She said some people stopped during the campaign did not have their child restrained at all, let alone in an approved safety seat.
These people were given $150 infringement notices for failing to ensure a child under the age of 5 was properly secured.
However, the majority of people who were told they were doing something wrong were concerned and wanted to know how they could fix their seat.
• The Plunket Car Seat Rental Service in Hillside Rd, where a Safe2Go technician checks child car seats, is open from 9am-3pm on weekdays and on Saturday mornings.
Strapped in
• All children under the age of 5 must ride in an approved child restraint appropriate for their age and size.
• Children must not travel in a car if not in an approved child restraint. The seat belt on its own is not an approved child restraint.
• When correctly installed and used, child safety seats can reduce the risk of death by 70% for infants and by about 55% for toddlers.
• From 2000-04, 81 children died in New Zealand from injuries after a car crash.
• Never put a child in a rear-facing child restraint in the front seat of a car that has a passenger airbag. The child could be seriously injured or killed if the airbag is activated.
• All child restraints are best installed in the rear passenger seat.
• Some child restraints have upper tether straps. This means that they use the vehicle's safety belts, and have a strap that must be clipped to an anchor point in the vehicle.
- SOURCE: NZ TRANSPORT AGENCY and PLUNKET
