Excerpt from a report prepared by the Institution of Child Health – UCT
"Contrary to public opinion, children in cars are at particular risk. Unrestrained, with low mass, relatively large head and thin skull, they are easily thrown around the vehicle on sudden deceleration after impact. Unrestrained occupants continue to move until they in turn hit the interior of the car at the same speed at which the car was traveling, usually 70-120km/hr."

• The head is a very mobile and heavy portion of the body.
• The head of an unrestrained child travels faster than the rest of the body because of the weight and therefore receives the major impact.
• On striking rigid parts of the car's interior, there is gross deformity of the child's elastic skull. This usually produces widespread fractures.
• Impact with knobs and projections inside the car tear through the skull, fragment the bone and penetrate the brain.
• Although such injuries may cause life-long cosmetic effects, it is the brain that suffers the most.
• Physical defects like loss of power in the limbs and loss of vision may occur.
• Often it is the more subtle changes which are the most disturbing. Impairment of intelligence, learning disabilities, memory defects, and above all behaviour disturbances and epilepsy may plague the entire life of the victim.
• If you hold your baby in your arms, in a head on collision at 60 km/hr , a baby with a 4kg mass would be thrust forward at force equivalent to 138kg.
• The baby literally becomes a missile, colliding with the dashboard 1/40th of a second later.
• If you too are not wearing a seat belt, your body would strike a crushing blow to your baby 1/100th of a second later.
• This devastating force is equivalent to an adult body being dropped on an infant from a height of 10m.