Boost Your Family's Safety

When your child hits school age you know it is only time until they start asking when they can ride in the car without a car seat or booster seat. Or to ride in the front seat. Or to just this once make an exception, and fit four friends in the back seat altogether, just for the short ride home.  And as a busy and tired parent it is tempting to make an exception just this once.  However, this is one area where your insistence on safety every single time your child is in the car can truly mean the difference between life and death.  Using car and booster seats correctly can reduce the risks to less than 2%.  Some tips to from carsafety.org include:

• Kids 12 and under should ALWAYS ride in the back seat.
• Keep your child in a car seat with a harness until they reach the top height or weight limit.  At this point they can graduate to a booster seat.
• Kids should continue to use a booster seat until they can be seated properly in a seatbelt.  For most kids, this is around 8-12 years old or 4' 9" tall, but proper seatbelt fit is the most important factor.

Despite pressure to allow your child to ride without a booster seat once they reach a certain age, it can be quite dangerous for children to be restrained only by an ill-fitting seat belt.  Take a look at this 5 step safety check to see if your child is ready to do without the booster.

• Always read the owners’ manuals for your vehicle and car seat thoroughly.  They often contain specific information about car seat installation that may not be obvious.  Some models may vary from what you would expect.
• When you buy a car seat or booster seat, make sure you have a good return policy in case it doesn't fit or you find you don't like it.  Have your seat inspected by a certified technician for free at a checkup event or fitting station.

Although it is tempting to think of the car seat or booster as just another piece of kid gear like their lunchbox or backpack, it is actually a very specialized, highly engineered piece of safety equipment.  The best way to know that you are using this correctly is to have it inspected at your local check up event.  In Lane County these free events are held monthly at the Eugene Fire Station 2, 1725 West 2nd Street, Eugene (just off of Chambers and 2^nd Avenue).  See the LaneKids calendar for the next date.   Also, check NHTSA’s website for parents, Parents Central, which offers lots of great information on car seat safety.If your child is like mine, she isn’t always thrilled to have to spend time in the car. This can make safety rules all the harder to enforce.   By the time your child is school age, these rules should be second nature.  But here are some ways to make car rides more pleasant:

• Make time in the car special in some way: I will let my daughter choose a cd to listen to or we’ll surf the radio until we find a song we both like.  And don’t be afraid to sing along!
• For longer trips we pack a special bag of books, activities and movies she likes that she keeps next to her.  We do not have a DVD player in our car, but have a small portable one we take on longer trips. This keeps it a special treat.

Use time in the car to tell family stories or ask the questions that you don’t think to ask your child day to day.  My daughter loves stories of my childhood and will ask for them on our drive to school each day.  But I also like to ask her things like, “What is the hardest part of being in second grade?” or “ If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?”Finally, while it can be easier to focus on getting all the kids safely in the car, it is just as important that you are strapped in as well.  Not only does this provide a good example to your kids, but when there is an unbelted adult in the back seat, it more than doubles the likelihood of all fatalities in the case of an accident.To learn more about state and federal safety laws visit Safe Kids USA and for some great information on when and how to use car seats on public transportation, taxis and plane flights, as well as tons of informative videos (I particularly like this one on the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics latest recommendations for car seats) check out The Car Seat Lady’s website.So, make your time in the car fun and keep your whole family safe by never moving out of the driveway without every person in car being safely buckled in!