BMW Group Malaysia recently organized yet another BMW Safety 360° program at My Playpen. The program, which took place for 6 months, was conducted in collaboration with selected Kindergartens and Montessori centres throughout Klang Valley to raise awareness and call to action for more responsible on-the-road and in-car safety practices for children, adults and families.
Working together with the Association of Registered Childcare Providers Malaysia (PPBM) in 2016, the BMW Safety 360° program focused on road etiquettes as well as in-car safety technology and practices for parents and children. The program particularly addresses the importance of child seats and the need for the special seats for children to be mandatory when children are traveling in vehicles in the country.
As part of the program, a series of road safety themed activities and learnings were conducted for the parents and children at the Julia Gabriel Centre, Krista Education and My Playpen while child passenger safety consultants from PPBM also shared with parents on the various types of childseats available and suitable children. The team from PPBM even conducted carseat checks for parents wanting to know if they had the correct seat for their children. The BMW Safety 360° program also took place at Cooler Lumpur Festival 2016 in September this year to reach out to more families in the Klang Valley area.
“The BMW Safety 360° program reflects our commitment to view safety and responsibility from the complete view of technology, behaviour and action. This year, we are continuing with our work from last year and we spoke directly to parents and children because we believe that they are the group that urgently needs to be reached out to when raising awareness on road safety issues, particularly on those related to children,” said Sashi Ambi, Head of Coporate Communications, BMW Group Malaysia.
Karen Tan, Child Passenger Safety Consultant to PPBM said, “It is a fact that car crashes are one of the leading causes of death and injury to babies and young children. While events leading up to the car swerving sharply, braking suddenly or colliding may be unavoidable, the outcome of how your child survives it can be. Your child must be properly restrained in a safety approved child car seat while traveling in the car, even if it is for short trips down the road.”
Buckling children in age- and size-appropriate child car seats, booster seats, and seat belts reduces the risk of serious and fatal injuries. Child car seats reduce the risk of death to infants by 71% and to toddlers by 54% in passenger vehicles, while booster seats reduce the risk of serious injury by 45% for children aged 4-8 years old when compared with seat belt use alone .
Further to that, PPBM also conducted a child restraint demonstration with ISOFIX technology which makes the seat exceptionally safe by eliminating the risk of the seat being incorrectly fitted in the vehicle.
Ambi added that, “The program this year has allowed us to personally reach out to more than 500 parents and it is our hope that parents will not only begin to prioritize responsible in-car practices for the best safety of their children, but also understand the different guidelines and uses of child restraints availbale in the market. Moving forward, we hope to achieve greater milestones in terms of car safety to further enhance our commitment to our consumers and Malaysians as a whole.”
