Is Your Child’s Car Safety Seat Safe? Most are Not.
by Judy Pearson, CSA

According to the Pennsylvania Safe Kids Coalition, preventable injuries are the number one killer of children ages 14 and under in the United States.

My name is Judy Pearson and I've recently joined FIFS as a customer service representative. I relocated from upstate New York where I was a Program Coordinator for 15 years with the County Health Department. During the last two years I became a Nationally Certified Child Safety Seat Technician, inspecting over 600 child safety seats, and of those, 560 seats were improperly installed in vehicles.

Making sure your children’s safety seats are appropriate for their age, height, and weight, as well as properly installed, can lessen the chances of injury or death if an accident occurs. By law, every child under 7 years of age and under 4’9” needs to be restrained in a car seat.

Your Child’s Safety Seat May Not Be Safe If:
• It has been in a crash
• It has missing parts
• It has no manufacturer’s labels
• It is on a recall list
• It is over six years old
• You purchased it at a garage sale
• It was previously used and given to you by a friend or relative
• It is not used properly

Choosing a Child Safety Seat
Each new child safety seat specifies its weight and height restrictions. Every manufacturer is different and their instructions should be followed.

Pennsylvania offers many child safety seat inspection stations. These checks ensure that your safety seat is adequate for your child’s size, is not on a recall list, and is installed properly. The Nationally Certified Technicians will teach you how to properly install your safety seat so you can be certain your child is the safest he or she can be.

There are more than two dozen inspection stations within 35 miles of our FIFS office. To find the child safety seat check station closest to you, go to:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CPS/CPSFitting/Index.cfm and enter your zip code.

For more information on Child Passenger Safety you may also go to the following websites:

www.nhtsa.dot.gov
www.pasafekids.org
www.boosterseat.gov

FIFS Connection, Summer 2006, Vol.3, No. 3