Does your child escape from their car seat? Here are 5 tips to handle it
Principal researcher/writer at Which? delivering award-winning health, baby and safety investigations, including our annual sunscreen tests.
Your child's car seat is the most vital bit of kit you'll need for keeping them safe while travelling.
But as they get older, their curiosity about their surroundings and their desire to push boundaries may mean they try to pull a Harry Houdini and escape out of their car seat.
A survey carried out by Which? in 2022 of 1,883 parents with a child under five found that more than one in 10 (12%) children had escaped from their car seat.
Read on for advice on what you can do if this happens, and tips on how to prevent it.
Child car seats laws in the UK: Which? advice
1. Pull over - but only if it's safe to do so
If your child has decided to make a break for freedom while you're driving through town, find the next suitable stopping area that won't block other road users, and pull over.
Until you find this spot, keep talking to your child, encouraging them to stay in their seat (even if the harness is undone) or get an older sibling to distract them so they stay put.
Once you've stopped, turn off the engine, put the handbrake on and stay calm. Rushing to jump out of your seat as soon as you stop could mean you're distracted and don't leave the car in a safe way (for instance, because of oncoming traffic).
What if you're on the motorway?
Do NOT pull over onto the hard shoulder or even an emergency layby to re-buckle your child. Keep calm, maintain control and signal to come off at the next exit.
A moving car on a motorway shoulder is at high risk of a collision. Getting off the motorway entirely is almost always safer than stopping on the side of it.
Car seat weight groups and height groups explained
2. Adjust the harness fit
A child's car seat harness should fit snugly across their body. You can allow up to two fingers of 'give' between the harness and the child, but the fingers should be flat against their body, not at an angle.
Ensure shoulder straps start at or just below the shoulders for rear-facing seats, or at just above the shoulders for forward-facing seats.
Take care with puffy coats and snowsuits
The extra padding and air may make it seem like you have a tight fit, but if they get compressed by your child straining against the harness, it may create enough space for them to slip out.
It's why we always warn against puffy coats in car seats - in a crash, they can reduce the protection the harness provides.
How to fit a baby or child car seat
3. Be mindful of anti-escape devices
There's an enormous range of devices and accessories that are claimed to prevent your child escaping from their car seat. But you should be careful about which ones you go for.
Car seat manufacturers don't recommend using any devices that have not been crash-tested with their particular brand and model of car seat.
Our car seats laboratory assessed some to check whether they would affect the protection a car seat offered, or impede a parent or emergency worker if they needed to get a child out of the car seat in a hurry.
Read our guide to baby car seat accessories for our recommendations on what you should or shouldn't use to prevent your child escaping from their car seat.
4. Establish rules and reward good behaviour
If an escaping child is becoming something of a habit, it's important that parents take the time to explain to them why they shouldn't be doing this. Teach them that unbuckling could put them in danger and that the car won't move unless everyone is buckled up.
Ensure there are consequences to regular escaping, but also praise and reward good behaviour if they stay in the car seat for the journey.
Don't forget to keep them occupied in the car
Whether that's a toy, book or well-secured tablet, this will help to distract them from the excitement of unbuckling themselves.
5. Remember to put the child lock on your car door
Whether your child tries to escape from their car seat or not, remember to put a child lock on the rear passenger seat doors to prevent them opening them when the vehicle is moving.
'Look before you lock': why leaving your child in the car in warm weather can be fatal
