Just two weeks ago, one driver was captured on video driving recklessly with a child unsecured in the front passenger seat. The footage sparked concerns online over the driver's poor driving etiquette and act of endangering lives.
When on the roads, what requires as much (or even more) consideration as getting to our destinations, is safety - the one thing that unfortunately often ends up as an afterthought. More than anything, having a child in tow always elevates safety concerns because children are less equipped to fend for themselves.
Child passenger safety in peril
This isn't the only incidence of child passengers being exposed to unnecessary danger.
In the KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) Child Injury Surveillance Report 2022, about half of child passengers aged up to 16 years old, were not secured with restraints when road traffic accidents involving motor vehicles occurred. This was measured for the period from 2016 to 2020.
Some alarming statistics were collectively reported by KKH and the National University Hospital (NUH) further back in time. Between 2012 and 2016, 51% of all children and adolescents who sustained road traffic injuries were not in a child car restraint; also, 65% of infants were not restrained when incidents happened.
This leads us to wonder why some adults neglect to give the safety of children on-board the same level of consideration we would accord to ourselves and a precious loved one. Adults have a duty to ensure the safety of children on-board: This is the very premise of the rules pertaining to the wearing of seat belts, under Singapore's Road Traffic Act.
Perhaps, it's opportune for us to refresh our understanding of the requirements of having a child passenger.
Is it legal: What the Singapore law requires
As far as we're concerned, there are two things the law governs when it comes to the ferrying of child passengers:
1. Height, not age
When travelling on Singapore roads, children below the height of 1.35m should be secured with a child restraint appropriate for their height and weight. This applies to all types of motor vehicles including school buses and private hire cars, with the exception of taxis and public transport.
That said, children riding in taxis can only sit in the rear if they are under 1.35m in height. This mitigates the risk of injury during an accident, as compared to sitting in the front seat, in the absence of a proper child restraint.
Unlike taxis, this allowance does not extend to private hire cars. In compliance with the law, the big players - Grab and Gojek - in the local private hire scene have rolled out child-friendly ride options that come with a child restraint device. Since these rides are pre-booked, passengers with young children should indicate their requirement for child restraints at the point of booking so drivers can make the necessary preparations.
For all other types of private hire booking, it's possible for drivers to cancel a booking if they are not able to complete a ride because of a lack of a ready child restraint.
Public trains and buses, on the other hand, are exempted because it's just not practical for these services to provide a range of restraints in varying shapes and sizes.
For some background context, the Singapore government revised the law in 2012 for parity with international standards and practices. Prior to that, age was the criterion. The revision introduced the threshold height of 1.35m on local grounds, which qualifies a child for unassisted sitting in a vehicle, albeit with a seat belt.
2. An appropriate child restraint
There are a variety of restraints that can be used - at different stages of a child's development - to hold a child in position in a moving vehicle.
Legally, there are no guidelines for when to use each child restraint. Children typically start off with child seats and transition to booster seats when they outgrow the former. What our law does prescribe is the need to fasten these seats with a seat belt.
The takeaway here seems to be that it's more important to consider if your child is developmentally ready, and whether the restraint used keeps them snug and secure throughout the ride.
Essentially, the switch from a child car seat to a booster hinges more on the height and weight of a child than the age. Since all child and booster seats have a weight limit, it's easy enough for parents to check which would better suit their child according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Hefty price tag
Failure to comply with the law may result in a fine of S$120, or up to S$2,000 if convicted in court for repeated offences. One could even find themselves behind bars for a term of up to six months.
But the heftiest price tag of all - that which everyone should strive to avoid - is the loss of a life.
A commitment to road safety
Even as Singapore's regulations model after stringent international standards, our traffic accident figures involving children on motor vehicles paint a starkly different picture.
A stricter enforcement of existing laws may be just what we need to treat child passengers as we should to a vulnerable road user. Above it all, the Road Traffic Act forms the fundamentals of road safety, and the least we should do when we hit the roads is to abide by it.
