magine you’re all set for dinner when you realise there’s no yogurt in the house. You grab your bag and buckle up your infant in their car seat. A few minutes after leaving the house, a car crashes into your car at high speed at a T-junction. Your car topples over a number of times before coming to a standstill. By the time paramedics reach and pull you out, you realise that you only have a few minor injuries — thanks to your seatbelt. Your baby, too, is scratch-less — because he was snuggly strapped into his infant car seat. This is a true story. It took place in the United States. However, imagine the same scenario in Pakistan: we all know how that story could have ended.

If you live in Pakistan, and I speak mainly of Lahore, because that’s where I live, the sight of infants travelling in their caregivers’ lap during car rides, children often sitting in the front passenger seats alone, and sometimes even in the laps of those driving the vehicle is deemed pretty ‘normal.’ A few weeks ago, a video circulated the social media in which a baby, probably six months old, was made to hang his legs from the steering wheel and move along as the driver, which was perhaps his father, drove the car. It was intended to be funny and harmless but one can’t help but wonder at the dangers of doing so.

An Instagram account called Safe in the Seat, managed by a child passenger safety expert in the US, quickly reacted to the video: “I know it’s just down the street. I know he’s driving slow. I know it’s cute. I also know that the risk is never worth it. Airbags can deploy when a car is going as slow as 8mph and is involved in a frontal or near frontal crash.” In a metropolitan city in Pakistan, no one would even bat an eyelid at such videos. We are accustomed to seeing toddlers and small children sticking their heads and arms out from windows and sunroofs. Pakistan has no child passenger safety laws, which means parents and caregivers are free to do as they please — but together with no awareness and lack of education regarding child restraint devices and the importance of using them, the situation is one that needs immediate state attention.

A 2019 study conducted by the students of University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, investigated the usage and awareness of child car seats in Pakistan. The researchers examined 375 vehicles with child occupants and 622 children at different schools, pediatric departments at hospitals, daycare centres and recreational places in three cities of Pakistan. Of the 375 vehicles, 318 parents/drivers participated in the survey. The research concluded that “almost half of the participants were found to be unaware of child car safety restraints. Those who knew, most commonly expressed unavailability, time taken in child car seat installation, and absence of law as the reasons behind not using child car seats.”

A few days ago I was waiting for a friend outside a restaurant in Lahore. As I was mindlessly passing time in my parked car, a car pulled up in front of the restaurant entrance. The husband was driving and the wife was sitting in the front seat while holding an infant in an infant carry-cot. Travelling with an infant like that can be fatal. The airbag in the car could kill the child in case of an impact.

As per the data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA, car seat use reduces the risk for injury in crashes by 71-82 percent of children when compared with seatbelt use alone, booster seat use reduces the risk for serious injury for children by 45 percent when compared to seatbelt use alone, and seatbelt use reduces the risk for death and serious injury by half in children and older adults. 

Sadly, in our part of the world, seatbelt use is not mandatory for passengers other than the driver, which takes the accident and serious injury data for infants, toddlers and older children to a whole different level.

A 2019 study by the students of UET, Lahore, examined 375 vehicles with child occupants and 622 children at different schools, pediatric departments at hospitals, daycare centres and recreational places in three cities of Pakistan. The research concluded that “almost half of the participants were found to be unaware of child car safety restraints.”

Some families do use car seats irrespective of whether or not the law requires them to do so. Sania S Shah, a mother raising her daughter in Lahore, spoke to TNS about travelling with her daughter with and without the car seat. She narrated the story of when her daughter was born in London, the hospital did not allow them to take her home until they had a car seat which was correctly installed and the baby properly buckled up. “When I came back to Lahore and there were no laws that required her to be in one, we started travelling without a car seat,” she explained. “But this time she threw a tantrum that she wanted to be in my lap (the front passenger seat) and I had no option but to take her. Once that was done, she wanted to be in her dad’s lap (who was driving the car).”

Shah recalled that to be a defining moment when she had decided that her daughter could no longer be without a car seat. “When you see the diligence and care taken by other countries when it comes to the safety of their children, you realise why their children are thriving,” she said.

he Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, recommends using rear facing car seats from birth until age two. Once the child has outgrown the rear facing car seat in terms of age, weight and height, it can be moved to a front facing car seat with proper harnessing. After outgrowing the front facing car seat, a booster seat should be used for children up to 12 years of age till the seat belt fits properly. After which a seatbelt should be used on every trip.

The current law in Pakistan mandates seat belt use by the driver only. “The general trend is to resist the rule of law,” said Shariq Jamal Khan, the deputy inspector general (DIG) of Punjab Police, talking to TNS. “As a nation, we are happy to disregard traffic signals and fight our way through challans and penalties.”

According to him, while child restraint devices are extremely important, no legislation in this regard exists. He says that even the enforcement of seatbelt laws for drivers has taken years of hard work by the traffic police. “We are now trying to enforce seat belt usage for all passengers in cars,” he says. “And if child car seat legislation comes through, we will be more than happy to ensure its enforcement.”

Ministry of Communication’s Road Safety Project, which was started in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), shows some intention for redemption. Their 2030 targets include improving seatbelt use and enforcing child restraints. Their website states that to improve child restraint use, Pakistan will require laws mandating children under 12 years of age to travel in rear seat, child restraints laws requiring infants and children up till five years of age to be secured in a child restraint and police reinforcements along with an awareness campaign for families, healthcare workers and police. However, until now senior traffic officers have no information regarding these targets of the government.

The law states that no person driving a motor vehicle shall allow any person to stand or sit or anything to be placed in such a manner or position as to hamper the driver in his control of the vehicle. However, until cars are stopped and parents ticketed for having children in their laps while driving, these laws remain useless. As Shah says, when helmets were made mandatory for all motorcyclists, people were ticketed rampantly. “There was suddenly so much fear around not wearing one that I saw some people who didn’t have motorbike helmets wearing construction site helmets,” she laughs.

“This means that if the government wanted to ensure child passenger safety it could be done, too.”

ar seats are being sold for approximately Rs 15,000 at local stores in the city. In today’s time of extreme inflation, anybody who can own even the cheapest car can own a car seat for their babies.

The state needs to understand that innocent lives are being lost due to lack of education in the country. The burden of responsibility falls upon its shoulders to ensure the safety of its most vulnerable demographic group. Until laws are passed and strictly enforced — together with awareness campaigns through digital and print media — the blood of the children whose lives are lost because of zero child passenger safety laws in Pakistan is on the hands of the state.

Nushmiya Sukhera is a writer and journalist based in Lahore. She has studied at Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism