Walking back from our flat a couple of days ago, I saw a baby being carried by his/her mother in a car. This, sadly, isn’t too unusual in Kazakhstan, and I think I’ll have a few battles in the future when it comes to insisting that Anna is able to use her car seat over here when we get a lift.
Part of the problem is that the law in Astana (laxly enforced) only applies to the front seats as far as seat belts are concerned. This means that even if belts are fitted in the rear when the car was made, they are often ignored, left under the seats or in some truely kcufed up cases removed!
Anyway, back to my story… Not only was this small baby held loosely in her mother’s hands, she was actually sat/leant against the dashboard in the front! So we now have a baby inches away from the glass windscreen, should any accidents occur. But it didn’t end there, this car was an almost new Toyota (Camry? I didn’t notice the exact model), and I’d bet 100 dollars against your 5 that it had air bags.
This means that should even a relatively minor shunt occur, the air bag would… well, lets just say that that baby’s parents would most likely be grieving.
It doesn’t matter how many people tell me that there isn’t the culture of safety over here, or that people don’t consider things like seat belts & car seats for children as necessary/affordable, it does not take a fricking genius to look at the little bundle of joy in their arms and wonder what would happen if this car was crashed into, right now. Anyway, rant over, and just to show that this sort of problem is obviously not just restricted to Kazakhstan, here is a quick picture from failblog I noticed recently…
May 27th, 2009 4:34 pm
Especially with the way people drive over here. And as a driver over here it terrifies me when I see a small child standing on the backseat in the middle in the car ahead of me. Which happens pretty often. I would be devestated if I was involved in hitting a car with an unprotected kid.
May 27th, 2009 7:15 pm
I’m still waiting to hear the taxi company’s response when we say we only want a car to arrive that has working, accessible rear seat belts (to attach our car seat to). I wish what I’d seen was a rarity, but you’re right, free roaming kids and pets (though on the pets front, we’re just as guilty in Britain) are not at all unusual 🙁
(edited post to remove several repetitions of ‘over here’ and minor spelling mistakes)