Child safety seats must be replaced following a car accident, it has been claimed.

Research by Direct Line found that a quarter of parents with children between the ages of three and 12 do not use a child seat at all.

A fifth of those surveyed said they did not believe that a child seat needed to be replaced after a low-speed collision.

By law, child seats are required until the child is either 135 centimetres tall or reaches the age of 12.

Every year, around 30 children aged 11 or under are killed while travelling in cars, while around 400 are injured.

Many deaths could be prevented simply by installing a child seat in the vehicle.

Maggie Game, head of car insurance at Direct Lines commented: "What might seem like a minor accident can undermine your child’s safety if you are involved in a subsequent collision."

According to the most recent findings by the department for transport, there were 258,404 casualties on British roads in 2006.