Down the Rabbit Hole

One thing I've learned about child passenger safety is that it is not enough to use a child restraint system when transporting a child; buckling a child  properly  in a car seat that is appropriate for his/her height, weight, and maturity saves lives.  It's not as simple as it looks. I didn't realise how technical it really is. I know now.  I was clueless almost a year ago when I was trying to figure out how to put my son in his infant carrier while we were getting ready to go home from the hospital. I'm not as ignorant now, but it's still a work in progress each time I prepare to drive my son around. I'm lucky, though, because I have a number of resources within my reach to help me improve. For instance, AAA has free car seat inspections; I attended one via video call because in-person inspection just isn't safe yet (thanks to COVID-19 ). I have been continually researching the best position of my convertible car seat in my dad's Mercedes Benz C230 a

I got in contact with Lem Rosellon from Mind the Gap Communications regarding Philippine RA 11229, the Child Passenger Safety in Motor Vehicles Law . A virtual press conference was held on January 29th to inform the general public about the implementation of the law (which starts February 2nd). Since the time difference made it tricky for me to watch the event in real-time, I fielded my questions to Lem, hoping that some of these would be answered during the press conference. (And then I watched the video recording a few days later) Some of my questions were addressed during the press conference. In fact, many of my questions were also asked by other viewers. In this post, I share salient points from the responses of the resource persons during the Q&A portion and from the presentations (in italics). I add my comments to these responses in red. Can I bring and use in the Philippines a child restraint system that I am using in the USA? If the child restraint system was bought befor