A clarion call has been made for South Africans who have car seats gathering dust to donate them to families who can’t afford them, but need to safeguard their children while on the country’s deadly roads.
This is part of an initiative being driven by the African Brain Child (ABC) research group in paediatric neurosurgery at the University of Cape Town, Supa Quick and Wheel Well, to safeguard the lives of children against traumatic brain injuries by putting more children into secure safety seats in cars.
According to the research group, the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital sees about 2,000 children with head injuries annually.
ABC says road accidents account for almost 80% of severe head injuries in children at the hospital.
Of children admitted after a severe traumatic brain injury suffered as a passenger in motor vehicle accidents, 96% were not wearing a seat belt.
Anthony Figaji, professor of neurosurgery, South African National Research Foundation chair of clinical neurosciences, and director of ABC, sees road accidents as the single biggest killer of healthy children in South Africa.
“We have seen the human cost of motor vehicle accidents and traumatic brain injuries in children we have not been able to save.
“We have also seen those we have been able to save, but whose lives have been permanently impacted by injury that is readily preventable with the click of a seat belt. There is an African saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ It also takes one to protect it,” said Figaji.
“We need to rally personal responsibility around seat belt usage — together as society.”
Figaji said for children, surviving a traumatic brain injury often isn’t the end of the story; emerging research shows that a single traumatic brain injury may cause long-term inflammation that can damage neurons for years after the injury.
This means that a child suffering a traumatic brain injury today may face further degeneration of their brain 20-30 years from now.
According to Arrive Alive, car safety seats reduce the risk of death in passenger cars by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers.
“Infants and children need a child restraint system that accommodates their size and weight and can adapt to cope with the different stages of their development.
“The three-point lap and diagonal seat belt used by adults is not designed for children’s varying sizes, weights and the different relative proportions of children’s bodies.
“For example, a smaller portion of a child’s abdomen is covered by the pelvis and rib cage, while a child’s ribs are more likely than an adult’s to bend rather than break, resulting in energy from a collision being transferred to the heart and lungs.
“Consequently, three-point lap and diagonal seat belts may lead to abdominal injuries among children, and will not be optimally effective at preventing ejection and injury among them,” said Arrive Alive.
“Appropriate child restraint systems are specifically designed to protect infants and young children from injury during a collision or a sudden stop by restraining their movement away from the vehicle structure and distributing the forces of a crash over the strongest parts of the body, with minimum damage to the soft tissues”
How concerned South Africans can support the Be Quick to Click campaign:
- Unused car seats can be dropped off at any Supa Quick branch nationwide and Be Quick to Click will donate it to a family that needs it in October, Transport Month. The Be Quick to Click team will clean, inspect and ensure that each seat meets the highest safety standards, before passing it on to a family in need.
- By making a financial contribution, individuals or companies will directly support efforts to provide safe car seats for children across South Africa.
- Donations will help Be Quick to Click to cover the costs of cleaning, refurbishing and certifying used car seats, or purchasing new ones, for families who need them.
To join the drive to save lives, visit https://bequicktoclick.com/car-seat-drive/
