Children's car seats

[Guest jadunlop]

Hi there guys, from what I've read our uk children car seats are not acceptable by law in Australia. So, do we bring over our seats from the uk (kids ages 7 & 5) as I guess they are better than nothing. We are hopefully getting picked up but our friends do not have young kids therefore no car seats. How did all you guys do in the same situation when you arrived? Are they expensive to buy? Can you rent them from the airport? We don't want to get into any trouble on our first day in Adelaide lol!

 

Regards

 

Jim

 

Edit** I've just read the 'car seat' post by snifter which is really good. Pity not one has started a Australian car seat hire at the airport as I for one would have used it! We are not hiring a car so I don't know what to do about it at the moment.

[Guest Ryan T. Lion]

From memory, you don't need car seats if you go by taxi in SA (but please check this!) we just strapped ours in as best we could. Why not take the kids by taxi, and follow your friends who can lead the way and take your bags? Just a thought.

 

Seats at K-Mart & Big W can be pretty cheap (we got ours there). The seats themselves don't feel any better than UK ones (our Oz ones actually feel cheaper!) but the law relates to the way they are tethered in.

 

Car rental is dirt cheap, and kids seats will only cost you an extra $5-6 per day each once you're here.

 

Hope that helps. You'll need to check the taxi thing - maybe someone on here can confirm?

 

RTL

[tinkertailerdog]

They are not legal, but we had a brainwave, bring them with you anyway and then if you go back and visit in the Uk, you will not need to hire again as you can check them in free on theflight back.

Sounds complicated, but if you have already bought them, just ship them over and use them back in the uk if you need to. Will save a lot of money when visiting.

[snifter]

You can hire them from some shops. Google should help there. Or have a read of the car seat post again as I did mention a shop on there might be able to help. Perhaps ask your friends who are meeting you to hire them for you for a few days till you get sorted and you Paypal them the money over.

[Guest BrianS]

I have a link to an interesting read on this subject will post it up at work tomorrow as I can't see two forums at once on my phone, makes for interesting reading, ESP with regards to the law and what's legal and not

[snifter]

Edit** I've just read the 'car seat' post by snifter which is really good. Pity not one has started a Australian car seat hire at the airport as I for one would have used it! We are not hiring a car so I don't know what to do about it at the moment.

 

TBH I think people can research that sort of thing themselves if they want to. Its not hard to find places that hire car seats over there, just have a look for places that sell car seats, prams and so on and they'll often list if they hire also. As for hiring just car seats from the airport, I don't know this is possible. I'd always suggest you contact the car hire companies direct if you have specific questions like that to see what their policy is and so on.

 

As I said, I think your friends could find a hire place easy enough and nip in and get you a car seat or two for a few days. You can then repay them the money somehow.