Britax Duo Plus Isofix

Posts Tagged ‘child car seat’

Some of the tips below may seem very obvious. However, there are many parents who do not abide by some of the most basic safety rules, so this is why they are included here and for which we make no apologies for their inclusion. Whatever car seats you own, even if it isn’t a Britax Duo the same general principles apply.

• Doctors recommend that you should avoid any long trips if you have a child under 6 months old.

• Make sure you schedule breaks at least every 2 hours. Just as adults, a child needs to get some fresh air and stretch their legs.

• Dress the child depending on the internal car temperature. If you don’t wear a coat, they won’t want one either!

• Ensure that all safety catches are active in the car when traveling.

• Make sure when getting your child out of the car that you do this on the pavement side.

• NEVER leave your child unattended in the car. If this is truly unavoidable, take the keys out with you, ensure the windows are locked, tighten the hand brake as far as possible and put in gear etc. Hopefully, even if for only a moment, you can keep the car in sight.

• Make sure the rear parcel shelf is free of loose objects like road maps and hard toys. In any collision these could cause injury.

• Don’t travel immediately after a heavy meal or provide a heavy meal in the middle of a trip. Light, small snacks are better and always take snacks and drinks in the car.

• Keep the children happy, tell stories, play games, get them watch out for certain animals or give them soft toys to play with. If at all possible, an adult in the rear will keep them better occupied. You can also secure a portable DVD player to the back of the seat in front and play their favourite film but do make sure the player is secure.

• Drive more carefully and avoid braking hard or accelerated quickly and especially taking bends too quickly.

• Should your child feel sick, drive slowly with the window open until you can stop. Take the child for a short walk and continue the rest of your journey more slowly.

• You shouldn’t smoke when driving and particularly when you have a child in such a confined space.

Given the name, Britax Duo Plus Isofix car seat, it stands to reason to mention what ISOFIX is. ISOFIX is a relatively new standard that car seat manufacturers and car seat producers now have to adhere to. It stands for the International Standards Organisation FIX. The system is also referred to as LATCH (”Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children”) in the United States and LUAS (”Lower Universal Anchorage System”) or Canfix in Canada.

Basically, cars and car seats are produced with ISOFIX fittings which form a rigid connection where the points

between the car and seat click together to make a very strong and sound connection between the seat and car. Such a fixing greatly reduces the risk of the seat being badly fitted. Badly fitting infant car seats is a big problem for most countries around the globe and in the UK, figures suggest that this is the case somewhere between 70 to 80% of the time.

Child car seats such as the Britax Duo Plus ISOFIX benefit from such fittings as they make it very quick to securely fix the seat in position – basically, all you do is ‘plug it in’. Seats with the ISOFIX fitting have two arms on the back of the seat which simply push into the discrete ISOFIX anchorage points of your car. No struggling trying to get the adult belt in the correct place and locked in (for those of you who have tried, it is particularly difficult to get the old style seats in and out in the dark!)

The majority of car seats produced for the UK market today have this type of fixing (e.g. the Britax Duo Plus ISOFIX system) although as a lot of people have older cars, the seats that need fixing with adult seat belts are still in production. Since 2006, new ECE approved vehicles have ISOFIX anchor points. If you have an earlier car, do make sure you have the correct fittings before you buy.

Although the results were frightening there is some reassurance for those who do not have ISOFIX fittings in their car. Crash test research has revealed ISOFIX car seats fair no better than regular type car seats in terms of protecting your child. However, ISOFIX will stop you incorrectly fitting the seat which is extremely dangerous as the seat will not support the child correctly in the event of a collision. Basically, either make sure your old style child seat is properly fitted or, if possible, get one similar to the Britax Duo Plus ISOFIX range – either of these options will greatly improve your child’s chance of surviving a major collision.

One final word on ISOFIX car seats: Although you should not have a problem and manufacturers now are obliged to build standard ISOFIX fixings into their vehicles, not every ISOFIX car seat will fit into every type of car if the car was produced before 2006. It is still worthwhile to check your seat of choice against your model of car.