An eight-year-old child was killed by an inflating front passenger airbag in Sungai Petani, Malaysia yesterday, as reported by Berita Harian.
The girl was reportedly resting her face on the dashboard when the vehicle she was in, driven by her 17-year-old brother, hit a speed bump severely enough to trigger the front airbags to deploy. The inflating airbag threw her to the back of the car, and she was pronounced dead by the time she arrived at the hospital.
Tragic news indeed.
Now parents, please take note of this incident and keep your children secured properly in your vehicles. Under no condition should a child ever be left unsecured in a moving vehicle.
Kids who weigh under 25 kg (weight is a more accurate measure than age) must be placed in a child seat (Group 0+, 1 and 2), and those under 36 kg should be secured with seat belts, together with either a booster seat or booster cushion (Group 3). These are absolute necessities, not optional.
More than that, it’s absolutely vital that they be seated in the back, and not at the front. This is to position your kids away from the front airbags in case an accident happens. You should only ever place a child seat or booster seat in the front if your car has a front passenger airbag off switch (not many cars do) – and even then, only as a last resort.
The two videos embedded here show very clearly why children, whether properly fastened or not, should not be placed in the front seat when the front passenger airbag is activated.
An airbag deploys extremely rapidly, using controlled explosives, inflicting considerable impact on the front passenger if he or she is not secured properly. This can be dangerous to adults who are unfastened, let alone small children, who can be flung backwards violently by an inflating airbag.
Parents, readers, please share this to avoid such horrific tragedies from happening again.
- Source: paultan.org | 15 October 2015
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