Royal New Zealand Plunket Society Inc

More children will be safely restrained in car seats thanks to a $5,000.00 grant for The Royal New Zealand Plunket Society’s car seat rental programme.

Most of the 27,000 child restraints which Plunket hires out are required by law to be “tethered” to an anchor point in a vehicle. The grant will fund the installation of anchor points in the vehicles of Plunket clients who are unable to meet the costs.

Gizelle Feldman, Plunket Account Executive – Community Funding, said while newer model vehicles usually have one or more tether anchor points, most older or imported vehicles don’t and the cost of installation can be significant for low income families.

“Feedback from our car seat rental scheme coordinators was that many of these clients were not correctly installing their restraints with the anchor points, leaving the children vulnerable to injury if in an accident,” said Feldman.

Tether straps limit and control the head movement of a child in a vehicle, preventing serious neck and head injuries in the event of an accident. In small vehicles especially, they prevent the child’s head from hitting the front seat.

The grant means Plunket will be able to spend funds, which would have been allocated to anchor point installation, on further child restraint safety advocacy work in local communities.