Buckle up for ones you love
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News from the Lake County Health Department
POLSON — We all want to keep our children safe and healthy. One way children learn is by watching their parents. If a parent or older sibling always fastens their seat belt when driving or riding in a vehicle, then chances are that behavior will be passed on. Wearing a seat belt is the most important safety measure you can take when riding in a vehicle. If you have an infant or young child, you want to be sure they are riding in a child passenger safety seat that is the right size for the age, weight and height of the child. Also, the safest seating position for a child up to 13 years of age is the back seat. See how you do on the simple car seat quiz below:
• True or false: All car safety seats are made to fit into all vehicles. False: NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) recommends that you try a seat in your vehicle before purchasing it. Cars with bucket seats or small rear seats may present problems.
• True or false: A 2-year-old should be in a rear-facing car seat. True: According to the Partners for Child Passenger Safety, a child should stay rear-facing until he reaches age 2 and until his height and weight reaches the car seat’s maximum rear-facing capacity.
• What determines when a child can begin to use an adult seatbelt? Height: Children who’ve outgrown their car seats, usually around age 4, should move into a belt-positioning booster seat. Once they’re tall enough for their knees to bend at the front of the seat cushion, then they’re ready to move to adult seat belts. (This is because the seat belts are to cross the strongest bones – the shoulder and hip bones versus the neck and stomach.)
• True or false: Your child can still use a booster seat if there are no shoulder belts in the backseat. False: A booster seat isn’t safe when used with only a lab belt. If a car doesn’t have a shoulder strap, parent should order and install a shoulder belt retrofit kit.
• True or false: You can put a rear-facing car seat in the passenger seat if it has airbags. False: Putting any safety seat in the front seat of an airbag-equipped car can put your child at serious risk because she is inches away from where the airbag is housed. Airbags deploy at about 200 miles per hour, and can seriously hurt a child in a rear-facing seat.
• What is the most a car seat should move or wiggle once it is installed? Answer: 1 inch
• When using a forward-facing convertible car seat, the harness straps should be located: At or slightly above the child’s shoulders using the top set of harness slots.
• When using an infant seat (always rear-facing), the harness straps should be located: At or below the infants’ shoulders.
As the driver, take the responsibility to make sure everyone riding in the vehicle is buckled in; after all, it is Montana’s law. If one person is not buckled in and that vehicle is in a crash, that unbuckled person can become a lethal weapon inside the vehicle. Buckle your children, but be sure you and all other passengers are buckled, too. If you have heavy objects unsecured in your vehicle, put them in the trunk. Remember, force = weight (mass) times speed (mph).
If you should have any questions about your child’s car seat, please feel free to stop by the Lake County Health Department at 802 Main Street in Polson, or call (406) 883-7341 where certified “Child Passenger Safety Technicians” can answer questions and check to make sure your child is riding safely. Buckle them up because you love them, and buckle yourself up, too, so as not to become “the elephant in the car.”
For more information on car seats and seat belt safety, go to www.mdt.mt.gov or www.nhtsa.gov .
