Keeping Children Safe

Despite all of the conveniences of driving, the risk drivers are willing to take is the chance of being in an accident at any given time.  Safety technology has improved dramatically over the years, and when rules for keeping your children safe in a vehicle are followed the risk for injury or worse is greatly decreased. Yet more 90% of people install their car seats incorrectly and many other rules are broken every day across the country.  Whether parents think a quick trip to the store doesn’t apply, or they would rather give into their child than listen to them complain, or whether they simply do not know any better, we must do a better job keeping kids in the car safe. Here are some very common mistakes:

Not using a locking clip or using it incorrectly:  If your car is a pre-1996 model, chances are the lap-and-shoulder belts don't lock unless you come to a sudden stop. This means you need a locking clip to hold the seat belt tight in the event of a crash. All car seats come with one of these clips.

Not securing your child in the seat:  Many children are not correctly buckled into their seats. The straps should not be twisted.  The harness should be tight enough so you aren’t able to pinch any harness fabric between your fingers.  The clip that holds the two straps together should be up to armpit level.

Holding your child on your lap:  It may be tempting to hold your child if he is upset.  This might seem safe enough. But the truth is that even if you're belted in, your child could be ripped from your arms by the force of a collision. And if you manage to get the seat belt around both of you, your weight could actually crush your child to death.

Letting two kids share one seat belt. Crash tests have shown that when two children ride buckled into one seat belt, in an accident their heads can knock together with potentially fatal force.

Letting your child ride in the front seat: Although your child may whine and plead to ride in the front seat with you, the backseat is by far the safest place for him. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recommends that all children under age 13 ride in the backseat every time they get in the car.

Using an old or secondhand seat: A used safety seat may seem like a bargain, but it could cost your child his life. Used seats could be missing important parts, may have been involved in an accident (even unseen damage can affect the seat's functioning), fall short of current safety standards, or have been recalled due to faulty design. Moreover, plastic gets brittle as it gets older, so a seat that's too old could break in a crash.  Also it is recommended that car seats are ideally less than five years old and definitely less than ten years old. You can usually find an expiration date stamped somewhere on the seat.

Turning your child to face forward too soon:  Children have large heads and comparatively weak necks, so in a head-on collision a child's head can jerk forward suddenly and violently, resulting in spinal injuries. For this reason, keep your child rear-facing position as long as possible.  The rule is at least one year old and at least 20 lbs.

Moving your child out of his car seat or booster too soon: A child should ride in a safety seat with a five-point harness until he weighs at least 40 pounds. An older child should ride in a booster seat from the time he weighs 40 pounds and is at least 3 years old until he's 4 feet 9 inches tall and at least 8 years old.

Insatlling the seat incorectly: This is the biggest mistake made by parents. A safety seat won't do its job if it's not installed correctly. It is not easy to get a car seat tight, but it is essential that it does not tip forward or slide from side to side more than an inch, and that boosters are secured with a lap-and-shoulder belt.  Many regions offer free car seat installation checks by professionals, they can help you correct mistakes with installation and get the seat tight enough if you can’t.

Safety seats dramatically reduce the risk of death or serious injury in a collision. Find a safety seat that's convenient to use and to make buckling your child into it such a habit that you don't even have to think about it. In any case, using a safety seat consistently and correctly is the law. All 50 states require that children up to 3 years of age (or 40 inches tall in Kentucky) ride in car seats in private vehicles, and many have laws requiring car seats or booster seats until a child is considerably older. There's good reason for that. Every year, more than 90,000 children under age 8 are injured in car crashes, and more than 1,000 are killed. In fact, auto accidents are by far the leading cause of death for American children.