Primary source: https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/licensing/vehicle/safety-standards-security/seats-and-seatbelts
Transport WA’s seats and seatbelts page puts the legal duty on the driver. Children from birth to six months must be in a rear-facing restraint. From six months to under four years the restraint may be rear- or forward-facing with an inbuilt harness. From four to under seven the child uses a forward-facing child seat or a booster restrained by a fastened seatbelt or child safety harness. From seven to sixteen the child uses a suitable child seat or a seatbelt.
Front-row rules follow the national model: under seven stays out of the front of a multi-row vehicle except for the four-to-seven exemption when the rear is filled with younger passengers. Transport WA also publishes a taxi and bus note: if there is no suitable approved child seat available in a taxi or bus, children under seven must not sit in the front row of a vehicle with two or more rows.
The page is part of a wider seatbelt conversation. Unrestrained children are not a “short trip” exception. If a seating position with a belt is available, WA’s public wording is that you must not drive with unrestrained children.
Pair this page with Kidsafe WA and RAC, then with travel and taxis if your week involves airport collections.
## After you read the local page
Come back to the national explainers if you need the “why”, not only the “what”. Ages and stages explains the shared bands. AS/NZS 1754 explains the mark. Travel and taxis collects hire-car and taxi differences so you do not mix NSW wording with Tasmanian wording.
If you are moving interstate with the same seat, the seat does not need a new mark — the Standard is national — but the taxi and penalty conversations do need a new tab.
This page is general information for Australian readers. It is not safety advice, a product ranking, or a fitting service. Always read the restraint label and the manufacturer instructions, confirm the current rule with the road agency in the state or territory where you are driving, and have the finished install checked by an authorised fitter.
Live source: Transport WA.
<!-- expanded -->
Regional WA and taxis
Distances in WA make hire cars and the occasional taxi part of ordinary family life. Transport WA’s taxi note is about seating position when a suitable seat is not available, not about inventing a new restraint category. If you can take an approved seat, take it. If you cannot, you still have a front-row rule to obey in a multi-row vehicle.
<!-- pass2 -->
How this state page should be used on a Tuesday
Print or bookmark the live agency link at the bottom of the page. If you are standing beside a car, you want the agency wording, not our paraphrase. Use this explainer to understand how the local page sits on the national model: the same four age doors, the same front-row caution in multi-row vehicles, and the same insistence on an AS/NZS 1754 mark.
Then do the physical checks this site repeats everywhere. Look at the shoulder markers. Look at the tether. Look at whether the seating position is a lap-sash position if you are using a booster. If you are about to cross a border later in the week, open the next state’s page before you treat a taxi exemption as portable.
If a family member forwards a social-media graphic that “summarises the law”, compare it with the agency page. Graphics drop exemptions, taxi notes and the stay-in-stage sentence. This page exists to put those pieces back.
For fittings, use Kidsafe and the CREP station finder rather than a random workshop. For recalls, use the ACCC. For consumer tests, use CREP after — not before — the Standard mark. That order does not change because you changed postcode.
Finally, remember the dual disclaimer. This is general information. A fitter who can see your child and your car outranks a carefully written map.