THE government has no plans to extend the mandatory use of the Child Restraint System (CRS) in private cars to other types of vehicles, said Transport Minister Anthony Loke.

He said for now, the focus of the mandatory use of child safety seats was only on private vehicles.

“In the long term, we hope it can be extended to other types of vehicles, but for now and in the first phase, we only made it compulsory for private cars.

“It is not easy to implement a new move… so we want to make a success of the ruling for private cars and see its effectiveness,” he said on whether there were plans to extend the CRS ruling to other vehicles, such as buses and ambulances. 

On concerns about the high price of child safety seats, Loke said the prices were expected to drop with an increase in demand and offers.

“We will take steps to reduce the cost of acquiring CRS, including getting the involvement of the private sector but for sure, making its use mandatory would create a huge market because everyone needs the seat and we can (then) see a drop in prices and many offers,” he said.

Last October 23, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail announced that the use of child safety seats in private vehicles would be made mandatory starting January 1 next year. – Bernama, December 20, 2019.