The information provided by
Adventuredad and the other posters is excellent and far in advance of my own knowledge; however the following may help with the UK-specific questions.
Does anyone have any info on requirements for anchors?Thanks
It was only in February of this year that a law was passed requiring ISOFIX to be fitted to newly manufactured vehicles. This law also requires that the system be fitted to a minimum number of seats (although I cannot remember how many!).
It is also worth noting, simply to avoid any confusion over terminology, that “ISOFIX” and “ISOFIT” are the essentially the same, the critical difference being that they are designed for 5 point harness seats and booster seats respectively.
If we will use a seatbelt, I would prefer to also have the ability to tether the car seat down. Have tethers been required in England yet? What year can I expect to find tethers to be more common in cars?
Tether anchors have been required in the UK since February 2006, so any UK sold vehicle that was manufactured (not only registered) after this date should have them fitted. Of course if you were to purchase an older car, the E-Z-On heavy duty tether anchors can always be retrofitted (I did this with our 2005 Ford Focus).
I have listed some sites below which are quite useful regarding child seat usage and the relating laws here in the UK. Hopefully these will be of some help.
1)
Child Car Seats UK
2)
Direct.gov – “When your child needs a car seat”
3)
Direct.gov – “Fitting and using child car seats in your vehicle”
4)
Rear Facing: The Way Forward
These are the “main sites” for the UK and hopefully will give a good overview. With regard to purchasing seats in the UK if you choose to do so, I would recommend investigating the following:
1)
The In Car Safety Centre (independent business, one location)
2)
Babies R Us (multiple locations nationwide)
3)
Mothercare (multiple locations nationwide)
4)
Halfords (multiple locations nationwide)
With regard to the final question I agree with
Adventuredad. I believe using a US car seat (or rather more accurately any non-ECE R44.03 or ECE R44.04 approved car seat) in the UK is technically illegal. I do not know the exact rules however. I will try emailing the local government to hopefully find out more (don’t hold your breath over this mind – they are not renowned for quick response times).
I hope this is of some help,
Gary.