by Whitney Henrie
Child Advocacy Specialist
In my line of work I hear a lot of stories about how in the past, cars didn’t have seat belts and car seats were rarely used, if at all. The question I usually here at the end of one of these stories is something like, “Well I survived without all that stuff and so did my kids. So why is it so important?”
September 15-20 is National Child Passenger Safety Week and we want to make sure everyone knows why car seats and seat belts are important.
Did you know that car seats have saved the lives of an estimated 9,600 children age 4 and younger between 1975 and 2010? That’s just those under the age of 4. Think how many more were saved by their booster seat or seat belt. That’s 9,600 more children who went on to have full lives. That’s a lot of families that were saved the heartache and grief of losing a child. In 2012 alone, an estimated 284 lives were saved by child restraints and an additional 58 children could have lived if car seat use was 100 percent.
It is estimated that every 34 seconds a child under 13 is involved in a crash and motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for kids 1-13. Unfortunately car seats and seat belts, now a prevalent part of our society, are not being used to their full advantage. In 2012, over one third of children killed in car crashes were not in car seats, booster seats, or seat belts.
The good news is there is a lot that can be done. The following is a list of steps you can take to keep your kids safer today:
- Keep your child in the right car seat for their size, not just their age. Often kids are moved from rear-facing to forward-facing, a harnessed seat to a booster seat, or prematurely to a seat belt before they are ready. Just because your child is 2-years old doesn’t automatically mean they are ready to be turned forward-facing. Check the height and weight limits on the labels and use the seat until your child reaches these limits.
- Read your instruction manual. Reading both the instruction manual for your car seat and your vehicle can help ensure that you are installing and using the seat correctly. If you are having any trouble, or would just like to make sure you’ve installed the seat correctly, don’t hesitate to call the Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians here at Primary Children’s (801-662-6583).
- Keep kids under age 13 in the back seat. From 2008 to 2012 there were 1,874 kids in the 8-14 age group killed in crashes. 1/3 of those were killed while riding in the front seat. The backseat is the safest place for kids to be until they are at least 13-years old.
- Buckle up on every ride, every time! You never know when a crash will happen, so it’s important to always have everyone in the car restrained properly, even if you are just going around the block. Making buckling up a habit on short trips will make it easier to enforce on longer ones.
Spend a little time thinking about the way your family travels this National Child Passenger Safety Week. Double check that all your kids are in the right seat and that they are installed and used correctly. Make sure you are buckling up yourself! Your kids will notice and follow your example. Let’s make sure even more lives are saved by properly buckling up.
