A joint campaign by the Finnish Road Safety Council and police found many cases in which small children were buckled in with seat belts when they should have been travelling in car seats.
The Finnish Road Safety Council points out children must use a car safety seat until they are 135cm tall.
Police also found many toddlers travelling in a forward-facing direction. It is widely recognised that rear-facing seats support the head and neck the best in a crash situation. The Road Safety Council recommends children travel in rear-facing seats for as long as seat weight restrictions allow.
In a few instances, police found that child passengers were not strapped in at all.
Ari-Pekka Elovaara of the Finnish Road Safety Council underscored that children’s bodies are far more fragile than adults’ and therefore require the best possible protection in an accident.
The road safety campaign inspected some 1,100 child passengers.