No plans to extend child safety seat ruling to other vehicles - Loke

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 -- The government has no plans to extend the mandatory use of the Child Restraint System (CRS) in private cars to other types of vehicles, said Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook.

He said for now the focus of the mandatory use of child safety seats was on private vehicles only.

"In the long term, we hope it can be extended to other types of vehicles, but for now and in the first phase we only made it compulsory for private cars.

“It is not easy to implement a new move...so we want to make a success of the ruling for private cars and see its effectiveness,” he told Bernama when asked if there were plans to extend the CRS ruling to other vehicles like bus and ambulance. 

Asked on concerns about the high price of child safety seats, Loke said the prices were expected to drop with an increase in demand and offers.

“We will take steps to reduce the cost of acquiring CRS, including getting the involvement of the private sector...but for sure making its use mandatory would create a huge market because everyone needs the seat and we can (then) see a drop in prices and many offers,” he said.

Last Oct 23, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail announced that the use of child safety seats in private vehicles would be made mandatory starting Jan 1 next year.

-- BERNAMA