nmm

As British car seats are apparently not legal in Oz, does anyone know if you can hire car seats with the hire car in Oz (Brisbane)? I need one rear-facing seat for an under one year old and two forward facing (for a nearly 2 year old and a 3 year old). Thanks

fairwayskid

Hi

We did not bring our car seats with us and then payed a fortune to buy the exact same seats here. So i dont know where it came from that our car seats are not legal here. Anyway yes you can hire seats from the car hire company.

When are you arriving??

Paddy

Kingseat

You can hire them from the hire company with your car. This subject sticks in my throat if I am honest! We had a britax ISOFIX car seat that we had to get rid of because it is not legal here (according to both the Police and the WA motoring organisation whose name escapes me at the moment). Anyway we got rid of and bought a new one here that just seems and feels so flimsy it worries me....so long as it is legal though

Our car has the ISOFIX fittings so it would have fitted - never mind.

fairwayskid

Know how you feel.

We paid $150 for the kids seats here and they are crap compared to the ones we gave away before coming.

Paddy

rab

Welcome to this Nanny State. You might find that your electrical goods are all illegal as well and that if you wire a plug you'll end up serving life in prison.

nmm

This is just for our validation trip (sometime in Oct - not booked yet). I am only asking as I am aware that when we hired a car abroad before we had to take our own rear-facing as they didn't hire them with the car!!!????
We were going to sell all our car seats and buy new ones once we move to Oz but are you saying that we should just take them and use them?

rab

when we took our six month old to uk in april 08 then again as a 17 month old in march this year we got my sister to buy baby car seats at argos and they were really cheap and great quality.

I personally couldn't advise the same coming this way but it must be worth considering bringing decent quality seats for a l onger spell here.

paulandcelia

Couldnt agree more about taking the car seats with you, we went over to perth last summer and took our 14 month old's car seat on the emirates flight with us , we had planned to only use it for her to sleep on the flight and hire one with the car but on arrival after looking at the state of the car seats they looked so flimsy we decided to use ours.

Celia

comet555

Whether you feel they are up to the same standars or not is somewhat irrelevant. The fact is they are illegal in Australia unless they have the proper approval.... and overseas carseats aren't Australia approved. It works the same way in Canada, Oz and even the UK as far as I know.

So if you choose to bring your UK carseats and use them here then you'd better hope you never get into an accident. I can't see you getting far with a claim when you're using seats that aren't approved in Australia.

And yes you can rent them. When we arrived we rented a rear facing seat and a forward facing seat until we bought our own.

Rudi

I'm with Comet on this one. I understand all the arguments about the ones from the UK being better and stronger, but that does not mean that they meet the legal requirements here in Australia. If you drive around with an illegal car seat you could find yourself in all sorts of trouble if it came to an accident. I am not sure of legal processes - but say a car ran into the back of you and for whatever reason a child in a UK car seat in your car was killed. In theory the accident is the other person's fault - they have run into you. However, legally you have failed to provide adequate restraints for your child, and therefore, in the eyes of the law, you are responsible for their death and could potentially be charged with manslaughter.

I know this is far fetched, but if you do not abide by the laws, you can get into trouble.

I know you can hire bigger car seats from car hire companies, not sure about rear facing though.

Love

Rudi
x

comet555

We hired a rear facing seat when we came over, our son was only 8.5 months old at the time. We used Budget for our rental although I'm certain there are others that have car seats too.

When I booked the car I made sure to call and do it over the phone so that I could be sure they had the correct seats. I also called a week in advance and even a day in advance to be certain they were there. I even made notes detailing all of this so there would be no problems when we arrived (a bit paranoid!).

If you have any issues and happen to be in the Bayside area you could always borrow mine. My son is old enough to use a booster seat now and his car seat can be used rear facing or forward facing.