Surely it cannot be just me who winced at the front-page photograph (January 28) showing a woman and a child in front of her in a sidecar of a motorcycle, “cocooned”, as this newspaper put it.

Does not one realise (clearly not the woman in the sidecar, nor the motorcycle rider) that this attachment is for one person only. It is possibly not equipped with a seatbelt either. Should this be a legal requirement?

How ironic that this occurred during a noble activity to commemorate Johanna Boni who was tragically crushed to death when riding her motorcycle to work. Ironic because if this sidecar was involved in a road crash/collision, the person most likely to be crushed would be the small child who would possibly act as an airbag for the woman, its mother maybe).

But is this a unique scenario? Sadly, it is not. For how many times have you seen a young child sitting on the lap of an adult in the front passenger seat of a moving vehicle or jumping around unrestrained on the back seat? Imagine the potential consequences if the vehicle had to come to an abrupt stop?

Not only are these situations unlawful, they are inherently unsafe and, dare I say, obtuse in the event of a vehicle being involved in a road traffic collision or crash. It is sad to highlight that the adults in the vehicles are, in all probability, the parents or close family relatives of the children.

If the vehicles’ airbag were to be deployed, the child in the front passenger seat would not only be crushed but possibly seriously harmed by the impact. In this scenario, children in the back of a vehicle, not constrained by a seat belt, may also be seriously hurt.

So, who is insuring the safety of children while travelling in all moving vehicles?