From the Lab to Real Life: A Mother's Wake-Up Call on Child Car Safety

A piercing beep echoed through the vast, stone-clad building. At the same moment, we heard a click, a whip-like crack, and the unmistakable sound of something accelerating.

From our glass-walled vantage point high above the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, Sara, a Volvo Cars employee, watched as a car hurtled out of a tunnel, speeding towards a massive concrete block.

The impact was sickening. The crunch of metal meeting an immovable object, the blasts of airbags deploying in an instant, the crumpling of the bonnet. Sounds I’d never heard in real life before.

And within that cloud of airbags, I knew, was a crash test dummy, baby-sized, strapped into a car seat.

“The same car seat my daughter uses”

I’ve always been a stickler for car safety. My mum wouldn’t even start the car until everyone had their seatbelts on. We always had baby seats or boosters, and from an early age, we were taught about the dangers children face in cars.

But it wasn’t until I moved to Sweden and started working at Volvo Cars that I truly absorbed the message.

After witnessing my first crash test, I was shown footage comparing the impact on a child crash test dummy in a forward-facing car seat versus a rearward-facing one. That, too, made me feel sick. It was all the convincing I needed to keep my children rearward-facing for as long as possible.

But it’s easy to say that from a Swedish perspective—here, it’s the norm.

Back in my home country, things are different. Children as young as one are placed in forward-facing car seats, toddlers travel without boosters, and both children and adults tuck the chest strap of their seatbelt behind them because “it’s uncomfortable.”

When we visited home and insisted on renting a rear-facing car seat for our toddler, we faced plenty of questions from family and friends— “She looks so uncomfortable! I’d get car sick!” - and even ridicule for urging everyone to wear their seatbelts properly – “It scratches my neck!”

But for me, it’s non-negotiable. And because my children have never known anything different, they climb into their car seats without question.

I hope they never, ever experience a car crash.

Unless, one day, they follow in my footsteps and see first-hand the incredible advancements in safety at Volvo Cars.