We were extremely lucky to be included in a select group of retailers to be invited to World of Volvo in Gothenburg, Sweden, on behalf of Axkid, for the inauguration of their Annual Safety Conference (April 2024).
The main purpose of the conference was to discuss child car seat safety, along with Swedish car seat practices, and to learn a bit more about the general feel in Sweden to Swedish car seat safety.
There were two of us travelling from Little Peas, and we flew in the day before the conference, where we had the chance to spend the afternoon looking at the Axkid car seat range, alongside the new Axkid accessories. As one of the longest serving Axkid retailers, it was great to reconnect again with the team in their own environment, discussing all-things related to car seat safety.
Conference Overview:
Anton Wall – Vice President, Axkid
The conference opened with a welcome and general overview of the day from their Vice President, Anton. He spoke about Axkid’s passion and commitment to latest innovation in childrens cars seats, and their ongoing commitment to extended rear facing.
Lotta Jackobsson – Senior Technical Specialist, Volvo
Lotta’s key message was around the historic Swedish car seat culture and the message of how rear-facing child car seats became the norm in Sweden, back in 1964. The Sweden’s understood and recognised early on that rear-facing in a car seat would not only prevent the childs head flying forward (in a crash), putting strain on the neck, but also allow the energy to disperse across a wider area of the child, rather than being a focal point, ie the neck in standard forward-facing car seats. She also stated (although it seems obvious, but requires emphasising) that the car seats shell is significantly more robust than the harness, in terms of retaining the child, coupled also with it being able to better at distributing force through the back, neck and head when rear facing versus forward facing, where the neck is the focal point.
Anders Kullgren – Head of Research / Professor, Folksam/Chalmers
Anders presentation focussed primarily on statistical analysis of risk of fatality and serious injury of children while travelling. Using real life data, he prove the correlation between changes in Swedish car seat campaigns to rear face, along with Swedish recommendations to rear-facing your child in a car seat for as long a possible, with the reduction in child fatality. That number trended downward from the 1970’s through to 2014. From 2014 in Sweden, numbers of child (0-14) fatality was shown as 0, 1 or 2 per year while travelling in a car.
‘Swedish national recommendation is to travel rearward facing up to 4-5 years of age.’
Daniel Johansson – CEO, Axkid
Daniel spoke around his vision and aim to be able to create a product that catered for peoples concerns regarding extended rear facing car seats; to address the difficulties in fitting the seat, in car usage and to design a product that solved the issues that people had, or perceived to have with ERF car seats. He wanted to create ‘the perfect car seat’ – The Axkid One. He spoke about his teams’ research in the development and the evolution of the One, to the Axkid One 2 and the upcoming arrival of the Axkid One 3.
He wanted the to find a solution to make a Swedish Plus Tested extended rear-facing seat that was easy to use, addressed the real problems, and he firmly believes that Axkid have accomplished this with the One.
Andreas Ericson – Specialist Nurse, Swedish Ambulance
Andreas had a short presentation that explained the challenges faced by the Swedish Ambulance service. Explained the difficulty they had in transporting a child in the back of the ambulance safely at speed, and that was adaptable to each size of child. How the equipment they’re currently using is complicated and time consuming to set up, adjust and use. He is currently working directly with Axkid to try to create a solution to this problem, with an aim to find an adaptable and fast fit solution.
Daniel Lundgren – Safety and Compliance Manager, Axkid
Daniel Johansson – CEO, Axkid
Daniel and Daniel spoke innovation; they introduced us to their new product…
That’s all I’m allowed to say about this section.
Andres Moncayo – Head of Engineering, Hernik GmbH
Markus Jacksch – CEO and Owner, Hernik GmbH
Hernik is an organisation that has the ability to specialise in the adaptation of car seats and travel equipment to provide a bespoke solution for children with disabilities and/or special needs. Andres and Markus spoke at length about the relationship between themselves and Axkid and their use of Axkid’s base-level seats that they’ve used, in order to provide adaptable solutions, now using the Minikid 4 for their flagship Hero product.
Tommy Pettersson – Senior Advisor, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)
Tommy spoke about himself and his background, along with his recognition that extended rear-facing is the safest travel solution. His research and knowledge led Tommy to become ‘the authority’ on rear facing, and Sweden’s voice to the world on car seat safety. Through time, Tommy worked on the Swedish T-Approval regulation and created the Swedish Plus Test. He spoke at length about the Plus Test, how it came about and its evolution.
Daniel Lundgren – Safety and Compliance Manage, Axkid
Daniel spoke about the Axkid Minikid in general, and how it’s still considered to be at the core of Axkid. The original Minikid car seat was based on the first ever car seat that Axkid made. Daniel also spoke about regulations R44 and R129, the Swedish Plus test, along with the Swedish recommendation to rear face to 4-5 years of age and Axkid’s recommendation to rear face for even longer.
“How are car seats translated into regulation? A normal standard 105cm car seat only covers 50% of children up to 4 years of age – this is data based on the growth curve of the statistics we have for children in Sweden. It’s also based on data we used on regulation R129. So by using a car seat that’s only up to 105cm, we only cover 50% of the lowest recommendation for rear facing usage. But using a 125cm car seat, we cover almost 100% of children at 5 years of age, and approximately 50% of children at 7 years of age”
Question and answer session – panel made from a combination of presenters, and other car seat experts.
Johan Andersson – Chief Sustainability Officer, Axkid
Johan spoke about sustainability and why it’s important to Axkid, and all of us. Axkid has a vision to align itself to maximise its potential and contribute to a more sustainable world. Like Little Peas, Axkid is not only driven by profit, but first and foremost by making a positive difference. Johan emphasised the dedication of Axkid as a company to meet their responsibility to help children of today help children of the future to have a safe sustainable world to live in.
He also spoke about new initiatives to reduce waste and maximise the use of the Axkid car seats to used them throughout the maximum available lifespan of each seat.
The conference closed with the opportunity to talk with retailers, staff, presenters and just generally to network. …. Followed by pizza!!
Thank you to Axkid for inviting us, and to Volvo for hosting.
