|
It’s only
natural: the very moment you leave the hospital and put your tiny infant into that car seat for the first time, a lifetime of worry starts. After all, it’s a jungle
out there, and since motor-vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death in children, you’re right to be concerned.
Rest assured, children’s car seats make an immense difference in protecting young passengers from harm in the
case of a crash. You don’t have to buy the most expensive seat in the store—just an approved one. Do your homework and decide which seat best fits your needs. It
can be tempting to buy a secondhand car seat to save money, but you don’t know the history of that car seat and if you don’t have the original instructions you
won’t know if you are using it properly. This is a prime example of the axiom “It’s better to be safe than sorry.” No parent would disagree that their child is
worth it!
There are guidelines to follow based on your child’s age and size. Most importantly, children should never ride in the front seat; they are much safer in the back
seat(s). (NOTE: A front-passenger airbag can harm or kill a person of any age who’s smaller than 5-foot-4. Generally children under the age of 12 should not ride in
the front.) Until children reach one year of age and 20 pounds, they should travel in a
rear-facing child seat. Once the child reaches those two milestones you should turn the
seat to face forward, and the child will ride this way until he/she reaches about 40 pounds and has outgrown the child seat. At this point it’s time for a
booster seat. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
recommendation, children should use a booster seat until they are eight years old with a height of at least 4-foot-9.
Don’t be tempted when you’re
in a rush to cut any corners when securing the seat into the car or the child into the seat; these life-saving devices only do their job if they’re used properly.
And just as car seats have become safer each year, so have cars—for all passengers. Car makers know that buyers will generally go for the model that will best
protect the family, so safety features like side airbags and protective door beams are being added more and more as standard equipment. Some vehicles can even be
ordered with factory-added, integrated child seats in the second row. Manufacturers also know that good results in government crash-testing helps a lot; they’re
understandably proud when they earn four- or five-star ratings in tests performed by the NHTSA and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
Any car manufactured after
September 1, 2002 will be equipped with the LATCH system for optimal installation of your child’s car seat. LATCH is an acronym for Lower Anchors and Tethers for
Children; it means that the car has been built with attachment points in precisely the right locations—anchors on the floor and tethers on the ceiling—for keeping
the seat in its place. The federal government implemented the system as a way of making child-seat installation uniform and simple as well as independent of the
car’s seatbelts. Under LATCH’s requirements, each passenger vehicle must accommodate a minimum of two child seats among the rear seats. If your car is not
LATCH-equipped you should be able to get a retro-fitting kit from the car’s manufacturer; check with your dealership.
This does not mean that
child seats installed using the seatbelts in a pre-LATCH car are not as safe as a brand-new seat in a brand-new, LATCH-compliant car. If you have any doubts about
the effectiveness of your child’s car seat you should take it to the government-run inspection station nearest you. All states and U.S. territories have NHTSA-run
inspection stations where you can take your child’s car seat to be sure it’s installed correctly and in the proper condition to do its job.
Find great deals
on new car seats Here! |