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Car accidents seem to be treated differently. You are pretty much forced to put in a claim. When DH had an accident, we had to put in a TAC claim. Ambulance cover in Vic does not cover trips from a car accident, so it is put on a claim or get a bill. Then of course there are all the follow on medical expenses, some of which are not Medicare covered, like physio.:
About 6 months ago or so, the Standards were changed from weight to height. So none of the seats now will mention weights, but rather shoulder height from the base. (Hence my earlier reference to the Britax seat with the longest RF they offer being a 35 or 36 cm shoulder height.)
What you are measuring is basically the height of the their shoulders from a seated base, rather than the weight of the child or the age.
Can you PM me where you got yours from Shant, pleasei!?:
I have no doubt that medical care at the time of the accident would just be a given. Its what might happen in relation to ongoing expenses that you may be looking at for years or even life. In some instances that would be something you would have to deal with, but God forbid you're looking at something like a child paralysed due to their injuries when you are looking at millions of dollars in care over that child's life.
Your claim for damages for injuries sustained by your child and ongoing treatment could be see you potentially looking at an apportionment of "contribution" or responsibility. For example, if you're not wearing a seat belt then your payout will be reduced by X%. The actual accident might have been in absolutely no way your fault, but you contributed to your injuries by your failure to wear a seatbelt. I have no idea if they would apply the same "logic" to using a carseat that while perfectly safe, is not an approved seat here, but that would be my concern.
I don't mean to discourage anyone from importing a car seat - as I've said previously I'm very torn on this myself - but its not just treatment at the time of the accident that may or may not be an issue.
I had a quick look at CTP insurance earlier and it was talking about lifetime care and support for bad injuries in an accident. It's that sort of thing that could be rejected in an insurance claim I guess? And yeah.. initial treatment can be within the hospital system, but there can be a lot of ongoing treatment that would be outside of the hospital and only partly covered by medicare, if at all. So it might not be something you can check with your insurer, as it could be the other person's insurance company that handles the claim.
I can't say I'm that up on safety standards and what is taken in to account. Is having a steel frame in the radian safe for other passengers? So many things can be dangerous in an accident, with projectiles, passengers impacting each other etc, it was just a thought.
The only thing I've really read up on is rear facing, and would love to see ERF being accessible here. It's certainly not against the law to rear face, it's just that we have no seats to do it!! So the idea of importing is very tempting for this alone. But we're hard pressed fitting 3 seats across the back as it is. No chance of fitting larger seats anyway :/
Good question about the safety of other passengers Liz! The steel frame is inside the car seat though, so reinforcing it. If you impacted with the seat in an accident it wouldn't be directly into the steel, otherwise the child in the seat would be at risk too. Around the frame is a plastic casing giving the shape of the seat along with EPS foam(energy absorbing) and the fabric cover and it's padding. The cover extends outside the seat to the sides. So I'd say impacting the outside of the seat would be a bit less padded than the inside IYKWIM but not hugely dangerous. I'd guess impacting the window or door could be more damaging, even a head clash with another passenger. But thanks for asking that. I'm going to do some enquiring. I'm still learning about passenger safety and it would be good to know if when seats are tested they are tested for safety of other passengers too. Although I doubt it apart from obvious things like sharp edges or protrusions etc.
The Radians are actually one of the slimmest seats on the market, and are marketed as a great seat for fitting 3 across in lots of cars. The Radian's size becomes an issue when rear-facing. The seats shell is very tall so when RFing it does take up a lot of space back to front. In smaller cars that will limit the room a front passenger has, and quite often means it's not able to be installed behind the driver.
You could be onto something there too with the ongoing insurance.
Thanks hun - can you link me or PM where you got this info from please? I am just looking at the current MR user guide on the Britax site and it says to use the seat as a Lap sash or H Harness from 14kgs... :o ETA: Just realised that is a minimum!:
At this stage we are going with either the S&S Hi-Liner or the Infa Vario Kid based on the teasing safety results. Still undecided about the H harness, am going to test a few out. As far as I can see is that they don't increase safety but are just as safe, so the question is why use one, and if used incorrectly then they decrease safety so still unsure. WOuld like to test it on the kids before we decide what to do. We need 3 seats all up as the MR we have will be ok we realised!
Just unsure what to do with my parents car - either swap cars with them, swap seats in and out all the time, or buy cheaper boosters for their car (which I don't really want to do but we can't afford 1k for 6 seats)
I got that from Britax. Had a lovely conversation with a rather rude woman there when I was researching bigger seats for DD2 about 5 months ago. She kept refusing to give the weight and age limits for the seats, would only give me the shoulder heights! lol Ended up speaking to her supervisor too. End result was that they were changing the guidelines from ages to height.:
tan- just thought i'd share my experience with you. i bought an s n s hi-liner for ds1. we got the H harness and it is such a pita when you are getting them in and out of the car- kinder drop offs, shopping etc. i absolutely hated it and ended up taking it out after about 2 weeks. it did my head in! then we had ds1 in the hi liner with the adult seat belt and he complains constantly that the seat hurts his back. long trips are almost unbearable. just thought i'd tell you what we've been going through, hence my interest in importing a radian. it is such a dilemma!
My DD1 is in the HiLiner, when i bought it i fitted it with the Protects harness they virtually insisted i get with it in the shop, i could not get a fit i was happy with (DD1 is narrow shouldered) so i stopped in at a safety day at another Baby Shop and had the fit checked, they confirmed it was not great and i was advised to dump the harness and just use the adult belt.
This is from Safe n Sound's Facebook page re height markers after quite a few people were worried about having to forward-face their babies too soon,:
Safe-n-Sound: Hi ladies, we understand that this is confusing and as a result we have revisited this issue. If your child reaches the shoulder height marker to move forward facing and are under 12kgs that we are confident that you can keep your child in the rear-facing mode up to 12kgs. If your child is above 12kgs and still under the shoulder height marker then they can still confidently remain there until they reach the shoulder height marker to move them. Please feel free to call us if you would like to discuss this in further detail.
9 December at 14:52
They have also said that the seats have not changed in construction since the introduction of the height markers and are tested to the same weights as prior to the change, for forward-facing and rear-facing limits. This was back in December though so for any newer models it would be worth checking. They are usually very helpful on their Facebook page.
Just updating! We got a S&S hi-liner for DD in both cars to use with the normal seat belt, the clip holder and anti sub clip all make it fit her wonderfully. DS being shorter and just under 18 kgs got a MR, which we have already as well so it's all worked out!
Tan how does the anti sub clip work?
You hook the middle of the lap part of the belt into it so they can't slide under the lap belt bit in an accident ITMS. It sort of keeps them more upright than sinking their bum forward. Comes standard on the HiLiner and when you convert the MR its got one too.
I was going to mention the anti submarine clip also. we have a maxi rider used with normal car seat belt and clip. i
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Hi Shanti, I was wondering if you could PM you experience with the Radian, I am thisclose to buying one a friend of mine has three I just wanted a second opinion. How do you like them? Do they feel secure in the car? What colours do you have and what does the fabric wear like and feel like?
this thread has been great answering my questions. I have a tall 2 yo nearly out of a 4yo seat, and in all my searching radian seems the way to go, price ($406 Imported) design, height, and Aus laws will change next year for isofix apparently!