| Road Safety Education Officers Val
Fuller and Peter Knowles commenced work on the project in 2007.
They began by carrying out ‘mystery shopper’ surveys at stores
selling Child Car Seats. Some retailers were not giving the
correct advice, putting children at risk. Val and Peter soon
developed an innovative training programme where retailers are
trained to give specialist advice about child car seat fitting.
The programme includes an accreditation
scheme with three distinct levels:- Bronze: those trained are
able to give basic advice including weight groups, air bags,
ISOFIX etc. Silver: staff are qualified to fit all seats the
store sells, looking at ‘buckle crunch’, impact checks etc. and
Gold: individuals are qualified to train colleagues to Bronze
and Silver levels.
All stores in Bromley have been
accredited, with 36 attaining Bronze level, 17 attaining Silver
and 2 are working towards Gold.
Repeating the ‘mystery shopper’ method
has shown an improvement in understanding by retailers.
Bromley is now working with the British
Standards Institute to produce a Publicly Available
Specification on the fitment of car seats.
The car seat education team have
recently been featured on Channel 5 News demonstrating the
correct fitment of child car seats.
‘Which’ magazine says, ‘To improve the
chance of all children in crashes, we would like to see schemes
like Bromley’s rolled out across the country’.
The Department for Transport asked
Bromley Road Safety Education Officers to assist in the making
of their recent advert showing the correct fitting of car seats.
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