Why it’s likely your chid is unsafe in the car

The difference between a properly secured and safe car seat, can be the difference between life and death for your child highway officials say. That’s why Safe kids Delaware continues to stress the importance of car seat safety by holding classes for people to become certified car seat technicians and informing people where they can get their car seats inspected.

“Children have very fragile bodies and without the protection offered by child safety seats they are at very high risk for getting killed or injured in a crash and the proper use of these seats is really important,” says Andrea Wojcik, spokesperson for Safe Kids Delaware.

According to Wojcik, about 80 percent of parents have their car seats installed incorrectly, what makes matters worse is that a majority of parent’s don’t even know that. That’s why she and Safe Kids encourage every parent to make sure their car seat is checked by a certified technician.

If you’re interested in getting your car seat checked, you can do so by using the child car seat inspection locator on the National Highway Transportation Safety page.

Safe Kids Delaware urges all parents to take these three steps to ensure your child is safe. One, register your car seat.  Two, find out if your car seat is recalled.  And three, get your car seat checked by a certified technician.

Officials say  many parents don’t take the first step, which is the easiest one, just sending in a registration card.   

Because of that many parents currently have defective car seats and have no clue of it officials say.

On top of possibly having recalled car seats safety officials say many parents believe they have properly installed car seats when they don’t.

“The car seat I had installed in my own vehicle was actually installed incorrectly because the latch system can only be used on certain vehicles, you can’t share the latch system,” said Theresa Bloodsworth, one of the participants in the child inspection classes.

Bloodsworth had her car seat placed in the middle seat using latches from both sides. At the class she said she learned that was unsafe, and that in her car, car seats must be latched in on one side or another.    

Incidents like Bloodsworth’s, is why SafeKids urges parents to get their seats checked.