“A safe ride every time” Child Passenger Safety week reminds parents to check car seats
Ariel Jensen
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – It’s child passenger safety week, a time to make sure your young ones are getting to point A to point B safely. Child safety is important year-round, but with school back in session and after-school activities, more kids are traveling on the road. Parents and drivers are being reminded how to travel safely with children.
“It is a good time to bring awareness to that and make sure that you’ve got the proper car seat, the proper child seat, and make sure it’s installed correctly,” said Sgt. Bryan Lovell with the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.
It’s important to know the details of your car seat because not all of them are the same.
“Having the right car seat, the right size car seat for your child, is very important. They’re engineered in for safety, for certain sizes of children, you know, with the harnesses and the buckles and having them properly installed,” said Lovell.
If your car seat is a hand-me-down, do some research on it.
Check with the manufacturer, make sure it hasn’t been recalled, and make sure it’s not expired.
“It’s important to check that because the materials used to make those car seats can break down over time,” said Lovell. “So the manufacturers should have a label or some sort of imprint on the car seat somewhere. It might be under the padding, under the plate, under the cloth, or under the padding of the seat. So you might have to lift some of that up to check.”
Some drivers think iit’s a short ride to ‘grandma’s house, it’s walking distance to church, I don’t need to put my child in a car seat,’ but you absolutely do.
“I see it a lot in traffic on some of the major arteries. And that’s probably the biggest mistake, because even a slow speed crash can cause a significant injury to the child and the people in the car,” said Lovell.
For more car seat resources, visit this link here.