CHILDREN’S car seats are often the most germ-infested area of the family motor’s cabin, according to research.
Automotive service Leasing Options swabbed various parts of the interiors of cars to find out what germs lie hidden from our eyes.
The steering wheels, handbrakes, gear sticks and centre consoles/radios swabbed all registered at between 10-20 LOD (Level Of Detection) for bacteria, which is pretty normal.
But the child’s car seat registered a massive 3000 LOD – and the main bacteria found on it, faecal streptococci, can cause bacterial pneumonia, ear infections and bacterial meningitis.
The shocking results are perhaps explained by a survey carried out alongside the tests, which found that 44 per cent of parents clean their child’s car seats less than once every six months.
And one in 10 parents admit to only cleaning the seat once a year, with 16 per cent saying they never wash the child car seat.
Interestingly, it’s younger parents who are most fastidious. One third of parents aged between 18 and 24 years old cleaned their child’s car seat once a week, which is way better than the 25-44 age group, where it was only one in five.
You can find a guide to buying and maintaining child car seats on the blog section of the Leasing Options website – www.leasingoptions.co.uk
