I am in India right now with the family on holidays and am wondering what is the safest (or least dangerous) way to travel with my two young kids (6.5 and 3.5 years old) in a car. My in-laws don’t have car seats (they are not widely used anyway), and there are no seatbelts in the back seat. So at least one of the kids will have to be in the back seat, held on the lap of an adult. But for the other one, is it safer to be like that in the back seat, or safer in the front seat with a seatbelt? We are driving in dense Delhi traffic, and never exceed 60 kph. And if the answer is that one should be in the front, should it be the older or the younger?
Given the circumstances, I think both kids should be in the back seat. The front passenger seat of a car is called the Death Seat for a reason (it’s said to be the single most dangerous place in the car).
With the adoption of seat-belts and passenger airbags, that is likely no longer the case.
Sitting on the lap of an unbuckled adult in the back seat is conceivably more dangerous than sitting alone. In a head-on crash, the child in the lap may be squashed by the adult holding it.
You might ask a mod to move this to GQ.
So as not to confuse the OP - this article does state that the back seat is still the safest for children.
Tie them down to the roof. That way they are “seatbelted” in a place that is unlikey to be hit by another car.
It IS for children – in fact airbags are considered an additional danger to them. It’s reccomended that no child under the age of 12 or 13 ride up front.
If the car in question doesn’t even have rear seatbelts, I find it extremely unlikely it’s got a front passenger airbag. Personally, I’d belt the 6 year old in the front seat and hold onto the 3 year old in the backseat, and drive as little as possible.
Win-Win!