Car seat safety is of utmost importance for your child’s well-being, yet its use is complex and sometimes leads to mistakes that put their children at risk.
Check Your Seat: If the car seat can shift more than an inch when pulled on its belt path, it may not be tight enough.
1. Choose the Right Seat
The first step to car seat safety for your child is selecting an appropriate seat based on their size and age. Different seats may provide adequate protection.
Experts, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the American Academy of Pediatrics, advise keeping infants and toddlers rear-facing until they reach the height or weight limit allowed by their seat. Facing backward provides extra protection to infants’ heads, necks, and spines in a crash.
Make sure that the harness straps sit just above or just below your baby’s shoulders and that the chest clip sits at armpit level. Also, refer to your vehicle and car seat manuals for details on correct installation angles.
2. Install It Properly
Accidents often involve car seats that aren’t properly secured, leaving children exposed to injury or even death in a crash. Even an improperly installed safety seat poses risks that can put children’s lives in jeopardy in an impact scenario.
Lap belts should fit low and snugly across the upper thighs, not the belly. Bulky clothing such as winter coats can compress in an accident and leave harness straps too loose, placing your child at risk of injury.
The tether anchor (commonly referred to as the tether) helps prevent forward movement of car safety seats during an accident. For more information, referring to your vehicle owner’s manual is key in finding where these anchors are located and any weight restrictions that apply.
3. Use the Seatbelt
Car seats and seat belts offer children protection in an accident, but only when used properly. Make sure the harness fits snugly (you should not be able to pinch any slack between your fingers) and that the chest clip is located at the center of the chest. Likewise, ensure the base is at an appropriate angle. Check with the manufacturer’s instructions for more specific details.
Be sure to teach your child to buckle their seat belt, never sharing one with anyone else. Tucking the shoulder belt under an arm or behind their back can leave their upper body vulnerable in an accident and could result in severe injury or worse.
4. Keep Your Child in the Back Seat
Children aged 13 or younger should always ride in the back seat to ensure they remain safe during an accident. Sitting up front increases their risk of serious injury or death from airbag deployment during an incident, so they should always sit in the rear.
Make sure that the harness slots are at or above your child’s shoulders and fit securely; bulky outer layers like coats and blankets may prevent the straps from fitting correctly.
Never allow children to tamper with or entanglement themselves with seat belts, as this could result in serious injury and is even illegal in many states.
5. Be Prepared for a Crash
Your child’s safety depends on you choosing and using an appropriate seat at just the right time and place. Use our car seat Finder tool to select an optimal car safety seat for your family.
Children not secured properly in vehicles are among the deadliest road accident victims. Car crashes can be traumatizing experiences for all involved, with even minor incidents leaving lasting psychological scars that last years later.
Kids are at great risk from vehicular backover incidents, in which vehicles backing out of driveways or parking spaces unwittingly strike them with vehicles while they reverse out. Teach your children what a vehicle looks like when it is about to back up and teach them to remain out of its path when necessary.
6. Be Prepared for a Roadside Emergency
Car crash injuries and deaths can often be avoided through the proper use of child safety seats, booster seats, and seat belts tailored specifically to children’s ages/sizes. Front airbags have the potential to inflate unexpectedly and strike children or their belts with devastating force, potentially resulting in serious harm or death.
Never leave a child alone in a vehicle for even brief periods; heatstroke can develop rapidly in just minutes.
Keep children safe by not placing anything not provided by the manufacturer in their car seat, such as pillows, blankets, or add-on toys. Bored children can play with seat belt buckles and wrap them around their necks or heads without proper supervision, creating an extreme safety risk.
7. Be Prepared for a Crash
Children remain much safer than ever in car crashes thanks to car seat safety standards and laws, yet parents still get it wrong; using sleeping bags that do not comply with manufacturer specifications; failing to register their seat; and improper installation all put children at risk.
Make sure all children under 13 ride in the back seat, securely buckled into a child car seat or booster seat. Even if they fit into an adult seat belt, children should remain in the rear to avoid front-seat airbags that could seriously injure them. Also don’t forget about forward-facing car seats with tethers for decreased head injuries in accidents.
8. Stay Calm
Teaching kids proper vehicle etiquette is key. Children who behave erratically while riding in the backseat can distract the driver and put all passengers’ safety at risk.
Children should remain rear-facing until they outgrow the height and weight limits of their car seat, then transition to a booster seat equipped with a five-point harness. Never place a child seat in front seats equipped with airbags as this could result in serious injury during an accident.
Keep away from thick clothing like coats and blankets when placing infants and toddlers into car seats, as these could create gaps that allow the straps to separate during an accident. Instead, dress infants and toddlers in thin layers for maximum comfort.
