National child seat law rooted in science

After years of debate, Thailand finally has a law that requires small children to be in child seats in cars.

As announced earlier this month in the Royal Gazette, children under six must be placed in a car seat or a special seat for safety while in a moving vehicle. The implementation will start on Sept 5 and violations could mean a fine of up to 2,000 baht.

The law has good intentions and is designed to keep children safe in car accidents, which have killed an average of 100 kids aged 15 and below in Thailand per year in the past decade, according to data from the Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Research Centre under Ramathibodi Hospital’s Faculty of Medicine, Mahidol University.

But why is there so much negativity surrounding such a law that means to protect the lives of the young?

In Thailand, not every family with kids uses child…