VW Malaysia takes an interest in childcare

The issue with child seats still hasn’t died down since the tragic accident that happened earlier this year. VW decides to take matters of children’s safety into their own hands.

In light of the biggest road tragedy this year, the question about child safety in cars has been called to light. According to the 2011 report from the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS), children are the first and the second leading groups of casualties with 43.8 per cent aged from one to four years old and 30.2 per cent aged from five to nine years old respectively. Investigators suspects this large number was caused by a lack of proper child restraint systems in the vehicles.

With the growing number of child casualties in road accidents, the government has announced plans to impose a new regulation to the Road Transport Act 1987 on the use of child restraint system (CRS) in vehicles. Before this regulation is implemented in 2017, VW seeks to educate parents about the proper use of child restraint systems in their cars. This extends to all road users and not just VW owners.

To do so, Volkswagen Malaysia teamed up with the Association of Registered Childcare Providers Malaysia (ARCPM) or, also known as Persatuan Pegasuh Berdaftar Malaysia (PPBM) to roll out a child passenger safety (CPS) training module across 280 childcare centres across the country.

At the first Child Passenger Safety workshop organised for media and Volkswagen staff, Puan Sharifah Salmah Syed Harun, Director of Human Resource, Volkswagen Malaysia shared, “Many parents thought the safest way to carry a baby is in their arms and it is not unusual to see toddlers riding on adults’ lap. We believe it is of utmost importance to educate people about the seriousness of this issue. Our goal is to change mind-sets and help parents take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of their children in cars.”

CPS trainers from the association will train other operators of childcare centres that will pass on the knowledge on the importance of child car seats and the proper use of them to curb injuries and losses to approximately 28,000 parents. VW Malaysia will also donate 200 VW child safety seats and 10,000 copies of the A-Z of road safety flash cards to PPBM to further support the on-going effort in raising awareness on this issue.

Jerrica Leong