Introduction:
We want our children to be safe in the car, first and foremost. They are our precious cargo. From day one, a newborn is carried safely in the backseat, hopefully buckled into a car seat that’s properly installed. Then comes the car-seat dance as the newborn grows into a toddler and the rear-facing seat gives way to the forward-facing seat. These are the “big moments” of car-seat safety and will be covered later in this book. But day to day, often seat to seat during the travel season, are the small moments of car-seat safety that can be easy to overlook. Using this comprehensive guide should remove some of that “gee, I hope I’m doing this right” sort of worry that all parents feel at times.
Why It Matters: The Science of Car Seat Safety
- Motor vehicle crashes are a top cause of death and injury for kids. But despite the proven effectiveness of car seats in saving children’s lives, safety experts estimate that nearly 60% of all car seats are not installed or used correctly.
- Statistically, kids are in more danger on the road than ever before, and, by not installing or using car seats properly, we’re making them even more at risk. What can we do to change this? Well, first and foremost, parents need to be educated on the proper use of car seats and pick the right kind of car seat for their child.
- Children should stay in a rear-facing seat for as long as possible since they’re safer that way. Once they’ve outgrown that, they should move on to a forward-facing seat.
- And then, during their school-age years, the child should be kept in a booster seat until the seat belt fits properly.
- The right car seat can save lives, but only if it is correctly installed and used.
Picking the Proper Child Restraint System
Your child must ride in an appropriate car seat until they reach the age of 12 or a height of 4’9″. Picking the right type of car seat is essential. What follows is a simple, common-sense guide.
For Rear-Facing Car Seats
For children who are under the age of 2, it is recommended that the car seat be installed in a rear-facing position. Rear-facing car seats provide the best protection for children in a crash because they spread the force of the crash over the entire body. A rear-facing car seat should recline at the vehicle manufacturer’s recommended angle: When the child is sitting in the car seat, their head should not flop forward, and their chin should not touch their chest.
The importance of reading the car seat and vehicle manuals cannot be overstated.
It can’t be stressed enough how essential it is for parents to read both the car seat and vehicle manuals. This way, parents can really get to know the nitty-gritty “install” commands that are spelled out in those manuals. But reading them isn’t enough. Every parent needs to follow through and “install” the car seat properly in their vehicle, following all the instructions to the letter. (That includes even the steps and graphical depictions that some folks might consider “weird” or otherwise unintuitive.) Because what is a car seat instructional message worth if it can’t be understood and acted upon. Hence, beyond merely understanding what the car seat’s instructions are, it is necessary for the person tasked with the action—tightening harness straps, affixing the chest clip, or following seemingly strange recline angle instructions—to understand why each action is being taken. That knowledge should help to persuade agents enacting the three aforementioned instructions to do so without doubt or hesitation.
The response to the prompt shown below varies the sentence structure.
The buzzers went off at 7:35 a.m. After seven minutes of “prayer time,” the TV clicked to life, just as it does on all school mornings across the country. The excitement and aahs accompanied morning announcements, some of them routine, but usually an a-cappella serenade by that day’s choir. In April 2015, morning broadcasts in New York’s Queename School District featured the winning entries from a schoolwide contest. “The prompt is: How do we make school mornings happier?” the aging school had asked its fourth and fifth graders. Their recommendations, from the silly to the sublime, almost always called for change in the daily administration of school.
Conclusion:
Ensuring the safety of your young kids in the car is a task that all parents perform with grave sincerity. From tackling the not-so-simple task of surveying the slew of options for child car seats and inevitably choosing one, to following good driving practices (can you say “safe following distance?”) and even summoning the great dad or mom forces at the catalyst of an impending “Dad, you nearly rear-ended that other car,” moment.
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