Thursday, September 21, 2006

Unhelpful answer on car seats

Regular readers (of whom , according to my new fangled stat counter there seem to be about a dozen) will remember that I emailed the Department for Transport asking for some advice on how to fit myself, the missus and three children into a car once car seats have to be fitted.

Anyway - this reply arrived from a Terry Deere at the DfT while I was at conference:

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Thank you for your enquiry. Please see Q 11 of our FAQs at the link below whhich may help you.

http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/childcarseats/childcarseats.htm

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Were it not for the fact that it was reading those very same FAQs that prompted me to send the email in the first place it might have been helpful.

So I have now sent this:

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Dear Terry Deere,

I had already read through the FAQs on the website and no it doesn't help me.
We have a normal car.

If two child booster seats are put in the back seat there is not enough room for the third child to sit comfortably with or without a booster seat.

If I put the third child in the front seat then there is not enough room for my wife in the back seat.

Please advise what I should do in these circumstances.

Thank you,

Neil Fawcett.

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Meanwhile my children remain in imminent danger!

I will report back on any further developments.

2 comments:

Jock Coats said...

Quite clearly you will be one of those households that does need a Chelsea Tractor and you are in the right party to ensure you get the help you need to keep it on the road without it taxing you too much!

Liberal Neil said...

I do wonder whether any of the civil servants that drew up these rules like have three children and a normal car.

Likelihood of the the Fawcett/Bowring household purchasing a big gas guzzler are zero!