Buckled Up for Safety -- Is Your Car Seat Installed Properly?

By Megan Oltman

"Buckle up for Safety, buckle up. Buckle up for safety, always buckle up." Does anybody know the tune? I'm old enough to remember the ad campaign designed to encourage people to use that brand-new auto safety invention, the seat belt. The campaign ran in the early sixties, the year we got our first television. (Okay, we were behind the times.) I was in kindergarten and very impressed. When we got our first car a few years later, I became a stickler for seat belts. "But it wrinkles my dress!" complained the lady in the commercial, and the announcer went on to warn of the dangers of unbelted driving, compared with the relative inconvenience of a wrinkled dress. We have come a very long way since the 60's in our awareness of auto safety and in the technology available to us. Lap and shoulder belts, airbags, a wide variety of specially designed child safety seats. But how many of us still don't use seat belts regularly? They still wrinkle our clothing. Child safety seats are even worse.

Inconvenience isn't the word for the aggravation of trying to buckle a screaming infant into a child seat, or trying to deal with a toddler who can easily unbuckle herself, but can't be convinced of the necessity of staying buckled. But like the lady in the commercial, we must deal with the inconvenience, even the aggravation, because the cost is too great if we don't. Experts estimate that 80 to 90% of child safety seats are improperly used or installed. Every year in the United States, more than 600 children under the age of five are killed in motor vehicle crashes, and more than 70,000 are injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Among the things we now know are that car seat belts and air bags, while credited with saving the lives of untold thousands of adults, are not designed to protect children. In fact, some car seat belts and airbags can themselves cause serious injury or death to children. See Kids and Airbags Don't Mix -- . All fifty states require child safety seat use for children under forty pounds and four years of age. For older children, the American Academy of Pediatrics, auto safety groups, and auto manufacturers all agree that children up to sixty pounds should be in belt-positioning booster seats until a shoulder belt fits properly across their collarbones.

How do you know if your child's safety seat is installed properly? First we'll look at the major DON'Ts, then at safety seat check-up campaigns, and finally give you a guide to proper installation of your child safety seat.

The Big DON'Ts:

1. Don't ever put a rear-facing infant seat in the front passenger seat when there is a passenger air-bag. An airbag will hit the back of the seat with enough force to break an infant's neck, and may deploy over the top of the infant seat, suffocating the infant.

2. Don't put children under twelve in the front passenger seat when there is a passenger air-bag, if at all possible. An airbag is deployed in a crash at a speed of up to 240 miles per hour. Anyone sitting in front of a passenger airbag should be tall enough that their chin will be over the airbag when deployed, and must be sitting well back in the seat, properly lap and shoulder-belted. If it is absolutely necessary to put an older child in the front seat, move the seat as far back as possible and be sure the child sits well back and properly seat-belted.

4. Don't put a child in a lap-only type belt, or allow them to place the shoulder belt behind them. In a crash, a child belted with a lap-belt only will be flung forward, slamming into his knees with enough force to cause severe injury to his abdomen, face and spine. If you have a lap-only belt, you can order a shoulder belt retrofit kit from most car dealers, or visit SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. at www.carseat.org .

5. Don't use a child safety seat that will not sit flat on your car's seat. If you can tip or move the seat more than about an inch in any direction, the additional motion in a crash can cause serious injuries, as can a seat which is tightly installed but sitting on an angle. Starting in Fall 1999, all new child safety seats are required to have a tether strap. You can add tether straps to an existing child safety seat. Some new child safety seats have correct position indicators. See Babies Buckled and On the Go

6. Don't use a child safety seat which has been in an accident without having it checked for damage.

Where to go to have your child safety seat checked.

Luckily, there lots of child safety seat check-ups around the country, sponsored by child and auto safety groups, local police departments, and auto and child safety seat manufacturers. At these check-ups a trained expert will go over your child safety seat's installation. To find a child safety seat check-up near you, check with the National Safety Council, www.nsg.org , your local SAFE KIDS Coalition, auto club, police department, or your auto's manufacturer.

General Motors has teamed up with the National SAFE KIDS Campaign to provide child seat safety check-ups at GM dealerships, day care centers and shopping malls throughout the country. General Motors has provided and equipped 51 Chevy Venture Mobile Car Seat Check Up minivans to help SAFE KIDS Coalitions in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide child passenger safety information and hands-on child safety seat installations. This is a free public service available to all car owners, regardless of the make of their cars. To find a scheduled child seat safety check-up near you, visit the National SAFE KIDS Campaign's website at www.safekids.org .

For owners of DaimlerChrysler vehicles, the "Fit For A Kid" service, provided by the auto-maker in cooperation with Fisher-Price and the National Safety Council, makes free child seat safety check-ups an integrated service of the corporation and its dealerships. When you have your car's brakes, tire pressure and safety systems checked at your DaimlerChrysler dealer, you can have a certified child safety seat inspector make sure your child safety seat is properly installed. Call toll free 1-877-FIT-4-A-KID to find a dealer near you participating in this service.

Check your child safety seat yourself.

highly recommends that you get your child safety seat checked by a trained expert. However, if you can't get to a safety check-up, here's what to do to check your safety seat yourself.

• Read your car seat and vehicle manuals to make sure you understand the mechanics of installing the seat. If the information isn't clear, call the automaker, the safety-seat manufacturer, or both.

• Make sure the car's seat belt is threaded through the correct slots.

• If your seatbelt only becomes taut when you hit the brakes, you'll need to use a locking clip. This metal clip comes with all new car seats, attaches to the lap/shoulder belt, secures the car seat, and limits the movement of the seat belt.

• Slide the clip onto the belt and position it 1/2 inch from the latchplate buckle.

• Check to make sure the seat is secure and resists side-to-side motion. If you can still tip the car seat forward or sideways more than an inch or so, you may need to buy a top-tether strap from the car dealer or safety seat manufacturer.

• Once the seat is installed, be sure you know how the baby's buckle system works. You can loosen and tighten the straps with the harness adjustment lever.

Reprinted from How to Install a Car Seat Correctly by the National Safety Council -- at .

So please, check those child safety seats, and use them. Make sure your are buckled up for safety.

About the Author -- Megan Oltman is a writer of articles, web-site content, adult and children's stories, and poetry, and the mother of two big , ages 5 and 9. She lives in rural New Jersey, with a house and a lovely weed choked garden, but she and her seem to spend most of their time in the car.

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