A new national campaign is has launched with the aim of helping to better protect child passengers and support the Government’s target of reducing child road deaths and serious injuries by 70% by 2035.
Rear Face for Safety is calling for a shift in how child car seat safety is communicated in the UK, encouraging parents to keep children rear-facing until at least four years old – supported by evidence showing children are up to five times safer travelling rear-facing than forward-facing.
In a frontal collision, rear-facing seats offer enhanced protection for a child’s head, neck and spine by distributing crash forces across the back of the child car seat.
Launched to coincide with Child Safety Week (1-7 June, 2026), the campaign recognises child passenger safety as a shared responsibility and calls for proactive, consistent communication throughout the parenting journey so parents understand that rear-facing travel offers greater protection and is recommended beyond the legal minimum.
It aims to ensure parents receive clear, evidence-based information and advice from healthcare professionals, public health teams, retailers, maternity and early years services, and local and central government
Rear Face for Safety brings together independent supporters from across road safety, academia, policing, transport, child injury prevention and consumer organisations, alongside leading Swedish child road safety experts. The initiative is led by Axkid.
Supporters include leading UK transport safety experts and academics, alongside the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT), Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), Road Safety Foundation, Road Safety GB, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), Police Scotland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Confused.com, MPs, Police and Crime Commissioners, The AA Charitable Trust and IAM RoadSmart.
The campaign is also supported by Swedish insurer Folksam, Chalmers Industriteknik and NTF (National Society for Road Safety) Sweden – organisations that have played an important role in shaping Sweden’s internationally recognised Vision Zero approach and wider progress in road safety and child passenger protection. Their work has helped contribute to Sweden having one of the lowest child road casualty rates in the world.
In 2024, 22 children were killed and 537 were seriously injured as car occupants on UK roads. In the same year, 42% of car occupants aged under 16 killed in collisions were not wearing a seatbelt or appropriate restraint.
Earlier this year, the UK Government released a Road Safety Strategy containing ambitious casualty reduction targets – a 65% reduction in road deaths and serious injuries overall, and a 70% reduction in deaths and serious injuries among children aged under 16 by 2035.
Rear-facing travel is one evidence-based opportunity within the wider programme of action needed to help meet these targets and keep children safe.
Jenny Everson, whose son Marlo was protected by a rear-facing seat during a serious road crash, is supporting the campaign and sharing her family’s story to help raise awareness among parents about the vital protection rear-facing travel can offer children.
Jenny was driving on Sheffield Parkway, a 50mph road, in December 2023 when a speeding driver crossed through a gap in the central reservation and collided head-on with her car. Jenny and her mother, who was travelling in the front passenger seat, were both knocked unconscious, suffered serious injuries and required hospital treatment followed by lengthy rehabilitation.
Marlo, who was nearly three and travelling in a rear-facing seat, escaped with only minor injuries.
She said: “Had it not been for Marlo’s rear-facing seat, I was told by emergency services he likely wouldn’t be here now. I will be forever grateful I did my research as I’m sure his seat saved his life, or at the very least saved him from serious injury. But parents shouldn’t have to carry out extensive research themselves to understand what is safest for their child.
“Since the crash in 2023, I have been very passionate about raising awareness about the importance of rear-facing seats and if telling our story helps save just one child’s life, then it’s worth it.”
Despite the UK and Sweden following the same legal requirement for children to travel rear-facing until at least 15 months and 76cm in height, rear-facing travel remains significantly more common in Sweden, where parents are typically told what is safest for their child rather than simply what the law requires.
Recent data suggests only around 22% of UK children aged two to four travel rear-facing compared with 83% in Sweden – highlighting an opportunity to improve how child passenger safety information is communicated in the UK.
Sweden is also home to the Swedish Plus Test – one of the toughest child car seat tests in the world. The test measures the forces placed on a child’s neck in a severe frontal collision and, to date, only rear-facing child seats have been able to pass.
A recent study carried out by Folksam analysing child fatalities aged 0-6 in Sweden between 1992 and 2024, found more than one in three child traffic deaths may have been prevented through rear-facing travel. The report concluded that up to 48% of children aged 0-3 who died in collisions may have survived had they been travelling rear-facing.
Dr Maria Klingegård, Traffic Safety Researcher at Folksam and co-author of the study, said:
“Children are not just small adults. They need extra support. A rear-facing child restraint system provides robust protection that is forgiving for misuse, offers synchronised support for the head and torso, and protects the neck.
“Sweden has among the lowest fatality rates for small children in cars, largely because most parents use rear-facing restraints for older children up to four or five years of age, or longer. It is the responsibility of every parent to make sure children travel as safely as possible, and that means using rear-facing restraints.”
(Picture: Child Safety Week)
