Road safety and children: a matter of family

Introduction: the objective of the present paper is to asses the level of perception of the drivers? responsability carrying children under 12 years of age, their knowledge in road safety, the relevance they attribute to this topic and the use they make of the child car seats. Material and methods: a survey through a personal interview was carried out on 200 individuals (100 men and 100 women) selected at random in the streets of Madrid city and its community. There were used three variates of categorization: the number of days per week the driver carried children 0-12 years of age in his/her car, the driver?s age and the usual kind of route. Results: the majority of the interviewed carry children five days a week, the route is mixed (urban and intercity), 85% have child car seats, but only 69% use them; 79% give much relevance to road safety but 57% don?t know the age child car seats are mandatory. The more frequent reasons why they don?t use child car seats is laziness (47%) and driving a short route (45%). Conclusions: the recommendations derived from data analysis in order to make 100% use of car chid seats are presented.