It has been a mainstay for 30 years, but childcare provider Plunket now is calling time on renting and selling car seats for young New Zealanders, to focus on preventing injuries in the home.

The announcement comes as fewer people are using the rental and retail side of the service, meaning it is no longer financially viable.

Plunket will cease to rent and sell car seats in the next 12-to-18 months. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

The service will end over the next 12 to 18 months, but Bay of Plenty parents are being reassured that nothing will change overnight and will still be able to hire or buy seats 'today, tomorrow and in the coming months”.

'We advocated successfully for the law change to make car seats for children mandatory, and our programmes have helped families get their children into car seats,” says Plunket's chief operating officer Andrea McLeod.

'Plunket has played its role, and we applaud New Zealand families for taking on board the message of every child being safe for every journey.

'There are now many retailers better placed than Plunket to sell seats and our decision to move out of the rental and retail space, which has continued to make a loss for several years, will not see a drop in access to good, safe seats available to parents.”

The number of Plunket car seat sites has declined from 283 at its peak in the 1980s, to 72 today.

Despite efforts to make the service sustainable, sites across the country have been closing as they can no longer afford to operate. The majority of these sites only operate part-time, a few hours a day, several times a week.

According to Plunket there are six car seat services in the Bay of Plenty in Tauranga, Katikati, Whakatane, Opotiki, Rotorua, and Taupo.

Tauranga‘s sole car seat service is the Devonport Road office.

'The decline indicates families' needs have changed,” says Andrea. 'Advocacy and education is where we see our role, along with supporting high needs communities.

Plunket's car seat service was launched in 1981, when the charity's research found only around 20 per cent of children were properly restrained when travelling in cars.

Research by the Ministry of Transport in 2014 found 93 per cent of children under five-years-old travel in car seats.

According to the most up-to-date figures from the Injury Prevention Research Unit at Otago University, fatalities for children aged 0-4 years average more than 50 per year and hospitalisations average more than 2500 per year.

In 1993 there were 104 hospital discharges of children aged 0-4 as a result of being an occupant in a motor vehicle, compared to 33 in 2013.

'Most injuries for children in this age group occur in the home - the very environment which should be the safest for them,” explains Andrea. 'Many more children are hospitalised for falls, poisoning or burns than suffering an injury as motor vehicle passengers.

'Over the years, our staff have carried out valuable work in helping thousands of families keep their children safer on the roads, and we are encouraged by the decline in the number of children killed or injured as a result of motor vehicle incidents.

'We feel we have an opportunity to build on this success, and do more to help families protect their children in and around the home.”

Over the coming 12-to-18 months, Plunket will work across each region to manage the exit from the rental and sale of car seats, and put in place a broader injury prevention plan of which car seat advocacy and education will be a part.

What do you think? Is this the right move by Plunket?