Sir, - Further to Douglas McCowen's salutary letter (August 1st), I would like to add that anti-lock braking systems, while a wonderful contribution to braking efficiency, do not change the time you need to get your foot up to the brake pedal, nor do they always decrease the stopping distance. Yet it seems that certain people believe that ABS imparts an ability to drive beyond their normal levels of caution and sense. I venture to suggest that this mistaken belief may have contributed to the escalation in accidents since the scrappage scheme.
Furthermore, I would like to provide your readers with a quote from one of our manuals regarding the transport of children in vehicles: "Never hold a baby in your arms while riding in a vehicle. A baby doesn't weigh much - until a crash. During a crash a baby will become so heavy you can't hold it. For example, in a crash at only 25 m.p.h. a 12 lb baby will suddenly become a 240 lb force on your arms. The baby will be almost impossible to hold.
"Infants need complete support, especially for the head and neck. An infant's neck is weak and its head weighs so much compared with the rest of its body. In a crash, an infant in a rear-facing restraint settles into the restraint, so the crash forces can be redistributed across the strongest part of the infant's body, the back and shoulders. This is so important that many hospitals won't release a new-born infant to its parents unless there is an infant restraint available for the baby's first trip in a motor vehicle."
The latter point relates to our North American markets. Perhaps Irish hospitals should take note. I certainly hope that the two ladies I saw last week in Dublin carrying babes in arms in the front seat of their cars will take note also.
Lastly, never place a rear-facing child restraint in the front seat of a vehicle. The front seat belts are configured quite differently from the rear ones and are designed for adult use only. If the vehicle is equipped with a passenger airbag, a child in a rear-facing restraint in the front seat can be seriously injured or killed from the force of airbag deployment in the event of a crash (even at low speeds). - Yours, etc.,
John O'Driscoll, China Country Manager, General Motors Overseas Corporation, Beijing, China.