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If there is one thing we take very seriously at Walton Bridge Garage it’s road safety and the safety of our customers, that’s why we will never cut corners when it comes to the maintenance and upkeep of your vehicle.

Today new rules came into force with regard to the rules for booster seats for little ones and on the face of it, they seem a tad confusing, so we’ve got all you need to know right here.

As of next month the sale of backless booster seats for small children (like the one below) will be prohibited due to their lack of protection against side-on impacts, but if you have already invested one then it will still be legal providing your child is more than 15kg in weight.

If you already own a booster seat that conforms to current market safety standards, you can stop reading now.

Under the new legislation, children will have to weigh at least 22kg and be taller than 125cm in order to use new seats.

Buy by Height and Weight – Not Age

Many of us are guilty of dreading shopping trips such as a booster seat fitting and will eye up a booster seat based on what we think will fit our child and generally buy based their age.

This is the incorrect thing to do. A booster seat should always be purchased based on the weight and height metric, which is actually easier than guestamating whilst holding your child up to one like a pair of slim fitting jeans to your waist in a changing room.

Children also grow at different ages, at Walton Bridge Garage we were all rather robust by the age of two, so the average two-year-old measurements certainly didn’t apply to us.

Plus as these seats are designed in such a way, it should be easier to find one that fits using the weight of your kid.

It sounds simple but research by Confused.com found that only 13% of parents understood these new rules. What’s more, 4,600 of us were guilty of failing to adhere to child seatbelt laws in the last two years.

So to put it simply, if you are buying an i-Size seat which is based on height, these are for up until 15 months old and must be rear facing (we know, we told you not to buy on an age basis and you can see why people are confused).

But when buying based on weight, remember the following.