Parental Perceptions of Legitimate Reasons to Relax their Seating Rules for Children in Cars

One simple, cost-effective action to improve children?s safety in cars is to restrain them in the rear
seat whenever this is possible, as this has been shown to be about 35% safer than sitting in the
front in the event of a crash. Moreover, seating position and restraint use have an interactive effect
on safety: wearing a restraint and sitting in the rear provides the best protection of all. Despite this
fact it appears that a high proportion of children are still travelling in the front seats of cars in
Australia. Changing this behaviour presents a challenge as we have little information about the
factors that influence parental decisions regarding seating position for children. Focus group
discussions were held with parent-drivers (n = 33) of children (12 years and younger) in urban
areas of Brisbane to explore these factors. Findings were that parents usually had firm rules that
children should always sit in the back. However, there were occasions when parents relaxed these
rules for what they saw as legitimate reasons. Amongst these were: perceptions of the trip as
short, giving children a ?treat?, and management of behaviours such as sibling fights and tantrums.