Child Seat Usage Enforcement Postponed to end of 2020. We’re not Surprised

Following the government’s announcement in November 2019, July 1st was supposed to be the day the usage child seats came into full enforcement, but did it happen?

Of course not. As many of us have guessed, the whole agenda has been postponed, until the end of 2020.

According to transport minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong, the grace period will allow the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) to review the suitability of enforcing the use of child restraint system (CRS) devices, with a comprehensive action plan on it being announced later.

It was also said that no summons will be issued until the end of the year to vehicle owners who do not have a CRS installed.

The move to postpone the enforcement of child seat usage is due to the change of government, and also the COVID-19 pandemic, which has somewhat prevented the members of the public to go out and sort things out. Simply put, the government is giving us more time to get the child seats for our vehicles.

To date, JPJ has issued close to 2,000 warning notices to drivers with children who have yet to start using child seats. It is also worth mentioning here that a total of 1,707 road crashes that occurred between 2016 and 2018 involved children in the car.

We understand that the government is trying its best to alleviate the financial stress of its citizens, but we're sure that there are other ways to do so without sacrificing the safety of the future generation.

With the sales of new cars and used cars on the rise over the past couple of months, there is actually no reason to think that people have no money to purchase child seats.

Unfortunately, the whole issue of child safety is still being taken for granted by most Malaysian road users, who just don’t seem to care even after reading hundreds of articles and watching numerous dashcam videos of crashes involving children.

That being said, we really hope that the government will look into this seriously and start enforcing the usage of child seats as soon as possible.

Take the drunk driving issue for instance – a great amount of effort is being put in by the government, JPJ, PDRM and other bodies to make sure that drunkards stay off the road.

Now, all we’re asking is that you take this issue just as seriously, and start punishing irresponsible road users who just refuse to get child seats for their cars. Do you really want to wait until something happens to your own child before acting?