16% of parents have had close call or collision driving with kids in the car

The AA which experienced its usual back to school spike in callouts on Monday, 28% above its daily average, is taking the opportunity of the start of the school run season to remind parents to pull over somewhere safe if they need to attend to their children.

The reminder comes following new statistics from the AA which reveal that of a sample of 10,500 parents, 16% said they have had a near miss or a collision as a result of turning around to attend to or discipline their children.

“As any parent knows it can be extremely stressful travelling with young children in the car, toys get dropped, tantrums happen, children get ill and so on.”  Comments Conor Faughnan, Director of Consumer Affairs, AA Ireland.   “It can be a real test on concentration levels and the natural instinct is to turn around.  If your little darlings do act up, take a deep breath, keep your eyes ahead and find somewhere safe to pull in.”

The AA also reveals that many of the parents they polled admitted that it took a bit of a scare before they adopted a stricter approach to travelling with their children in the car.  “One woman for example shared that having almost reared ended another vehicle she now separates her children and they know the ground rules.  Another respondent admitted that nothing more needed to be said as regards discipline after he crashed his car while giving out to his two sons who were fighting in the back.”  Says Faughnan.

Tricks of the trade – techniques parents use to occupy children in the car:

The AA also reveal the top five techniques parents use to keep their children entertained while in the car.

The most popular technique used is to bribe good behavior with a few choice snacks.  After this is the use of good old fashioned car trip games such as ‘I spy’.   However ‘I spy’ is where the more traditional forms of entertainment end the AA reveals.

Hand held games consoles and portable DVD players rank third and forth while the use of audio books or children’s music round out the top five.

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Notes to the editor; 

Fig. 1 Number of parents who have had a near miss or a collision as a result of reach back to attend to/discipline a child while driving based on 10,612 responses. 

Fig.2 The tactics parent most commonly use to keep their children entertained while driving based on 9,326 responses.