Renting a car, thai mother of young boy refusing to use infant seat

[maximillian]

I bet she's from Isaan

Why isn't there a "dislike" button ?

Idiot !

[dotpoom]

I'm hardly surprised at the Mom's attitude when I see babies hanging out of sidecars on motorbikes and alone in the back of pick-ups. Cannot answer your question about who's legally responsible....but as you know...the driver in Europe would be responsible..........and I imagine because you are a Farang...you would be responsible here too but for very different reasons. If it were a Thai driver I imagine nobody would be responsible.

[Sayonarax]

Your only required to wear seat belts in the front of the car.

If you had a Thai driving license you;d know these things..

Edited May 9, 2014 by Sayonarax

[lostinisaan]

I hope you'll have enough toilet paper for your ride.

[socksy01]

Grow some balls.

Tell them the kid and its mother are uninvited. End of story.

Share a vehicle with some uneducated buffoon who considers you stupid for thinking about the safety of her kid. No chance, tell the simpleton to F off.

Agreed tell her to 'Foxtrot Oscar' and she obviously suffers from TAFS (thick as f*#!& syndrome)

[Stuart21]

It will go like this.

The cousin and her son will go with u in the car....you have the infantseat....with some luck, 40%, he will sit in it....you stop somewhere....back in the car after sometime...the game will definatively be on......arguments will arise....ur wife not siding with u....u think.....oh what the heck ....its not my kid......u will get annoyed more and more.....u will give up arguing.....everybody happy.....only not u......i could go on and on....

Its just not there....i never drove with my children on mbike....bought a car when we had our firstborn....bought a infantseat...later 2 more......the moment i left....guess what......their way is the only way.....the car is a small confined playgarden...

Good luck...

So very true!! My experience exactly!

First time they refuse to put the belt on, just ask 'where is the nearest bus station?'. They will probably have belts on by the time you get there, if not, out!

From Wikipedia on Nils Bohlin - "In addition to designing an effective three-point belt, Bohlin demonstrated its effectiveness in a study of 28,000 accidents in Sweden, and presented a paper at the 11th Stapp Car Crash Convention. Unbelted occupants sustained fatal injuries throughout the whole speed scale, whereas none of the belted occupants was fatally injured at accident speeds below 60 mph. No belted occupant was fatally injured if the passenger compartment remained intact."

Even better than I thought!

[sfbandung]

I bet she's from Isaan

Why? Because all girls from Isaan are dumb bar girls who don't understand safety?

[sfbandung]

Never had an argument from my missus about wearing seatbelts or child safety. The kids argue all the time of course. My 12 year old daughter always wants to take off her seatbelt on long trips and lie down. She does what she is bloody well told. Safety is not negotiable. Belt up or walk.

[David48]

Do remember that white lies are good to avoid confrontation.

Maybe it's a rule of the hire company?

(A good lie is a simple lie and told with a kind smile)

Now, there is a smart reply.

The Thai way.

No-one loses face, blame the 3rd party and a small white lie to achieve the desired results.

BTW ... most likely the 3 year old Thai boy in question will have never say in a child seat ... good luck with that issue ...

[BrooklynNY]

Ignorant is an appropriate word for most Thai parents. They spoil their children rotten. This stubborn ignorant attitude passes on from generation to generation that those Thais have become embedded numbskulls. There is a saying in Thai "ไม่เห็นโลงศผ ไม่หลั่งน้ำตา" something like, No coffin, no tears or Shed no tears unless there is a death.

[kurnell]

You'd have better luck trying to sell a dog turd to a Thai than a car seat.

[chrissables]

Do you have any balls?

If you do, do it YOUR way, the right way.

You may, of course, be required by the hire company's rules to have a child seat - I don't know.

In any event, what were you going to do - go back to your missus and say "75% of posters on Thai Visa.com say we must have a child seat"

It is you against the Thais. Concede now for an easy life or put your foot down (if you believe it) and say the cousin and kid can only come if a child seat is installed and used at all times.

i wish you well, you are in a no win situation.

The hire company will require it? What country do you live in?

They do very little to help as well, but the company making them has made a fortune lying about that!

[chrissables]

Brought to mind the book "Superfreakanomics". They used statistical tools to examine everyday things. One conclusion borne out was that child car seats are no safer than just using regular seat belt on the kid. Plus huge percentage of child seats are not properly installed anyway.

From memory, the comparison was not against seat belts, just the use of a child seat, but i could be wrong.

Any so called safety devise is usually about money, not saving lives. But people believe the bull#hit

[chrissables]

Good on you for considering the safety of your passengers. If more people did , there would be less deaths on Thai roads.

If people stopped the cause of accidents, there would be none.

[chrissables]

My kids never went in car seats.we couldn't afford one.

When they were very small I'd make sure the were in the arms of their mother in the back. When about 2, on a cushion with seatbelt.

When on a motorbike always in between us adults.

The farang way of thinking is over the top.

Op you worry too much, no sense of adventure.

Did you sit in a safety chair when a kid?

Really tell that to my neighbour who lost his 2 kids and wife because they werent buckled up...and many of others who die in traffic in thailand every year.

He lost them because of an accident, you have no idea if they would be alive if they did wear a belt. People die in accident all over the world when wearing belts!

[chrissables]

Google 'car accident victim no seatbelt'. Show them the pictures. Do you want to end up like that? No. Get in the carseat then.

Google car accidents with seat belt as well.

[thehelmsman]

Come on, loosen up a little. All these "grow a pair" guys are laughable.

People in front always wear seatbelt, the rest of pick-up is a free for all. Our daughter roams the truck.

Why do all of you want to create new rules?? Now, if we were to visit the US training the little one to use car seat will be a chore.