Pollyana

Yeah, you're right, I'm just being lazy

cresta57

Peace & quiet returned to the house at 5am this morning Amy & Summer caught the first train back to NSW.
The booster seat was finally unbolted from the back of my Ute and went with them

sunshine dreamer

Excellent thread. This has been a dilema for us as we have a baby and a toddler,and were wondering what to do.

Decided to take both seats after reading this thread.

thanks for the info.

Pollyana

Freedom for the Ute!!!It can now hold its head up high again as a tough feral ute, and not a baby-carrier
When you bringing my bottles down?

bridie

I think people would probably care if they had an accident or were checked and it was discovered the seat didnt comply, plus as someone else has said seats here have anchor points so are slightly different.

I did some digging on this and even emailed Britax as I wanted to get one of those lift out seats brought over from the UK as they are not only more convenient but far cheaper - but they confirmed it's illegal to use a non-Aus one. Seems crazy to me too as surely the standards are the same BUT "dems da rules" and personally I would not want to risk carrying my baby around in a seat that doesnt comply.

Amazulu

Totally agree. The legal and insurance consequences in the event of an accident could be huge. I can't believe that there is even a debate on this issue. Get Aussie seats and leave the UK ones behind. Simple as.

ptlabs

In NSW, go to:

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety...restraint.html

Peter

Paul and Chloe

What would the insurance consequences be? What would not be insured if you used UK seats?? Your kids?

Amazulu

If it was your car and you were involved in accident where a child was hurt whilst sitting in a seat that was not to Australian standards, then I reckon there could be serious insurance issues.

Paul and Chloe

But I still do not understand what the insurance risks would be? WOuld the car insurance be invalidated - I seriously doubt it, I could understand that there maybe legal issues but not insurance ones, although having spoken to people in the legal profession here they seem to doubt there really would be any issue.

Amazulu

Cool. You do what you need to to save a few bucks and I'll do what I need to do to ensure the safety of my son. End of.

bridie

Agreed, personally I dont think it's worth the risk....

Obviously it probably varies from state to state but:

Under Queensland law, the driver of the vehicle must ensure children under 16 years of age are wearing a correctly fitted child restraint or a seatbelt. The penalty for failing to do this is a A$225 fine and three demerit points.

Paul and Chloe

We did use our UK seats until the kids out grew them then we bought Oz ones. The bottom line is I do not believe that your son was any safer in a Oz seat that our kids were in UK seats....otherwise we would not have done what we did...

bridie

I dont think the issue is just about safety though, it's unclear what would happen if you were stopped and your car was checked by police and found to have a non-Aus standard seat in it, or you had an accident (whether resulting in harm to the child or not) and it was discovered. It's not something that happens everyday so I doubt there's much information on it, but personally speaking I would rather just spend the $s on an Aus car seat and know that if anything happened I wouldnt be taken to court / fined or whatever because the seat didnt conform.

Paul and Chloe

Agreed, it is a personal decision but in the end the safety of our kids was our main concern and if we were happy with them in the car seats in the UK then we were happy enough here....understanding that if the WA police had nothing better to do then they could make an issue of it...they didn't and they are now in Australian booster seats....I have to say that we did not let the kids into some of our friends cars due to the poor "approved" car seats that they had. In the end from a safety perspective the critical factor is the correct fitting of the seat more than any other factor.

Cheers

Paul