This week, parents in Bloomington-Normal got the chance to learn how to properly fasten their children’s car seats.
The inaugural Child Passenger Safety Car Seat Blitz took place at four locations in Bloomington-Normal. For two hours, parents and caregivers could get a safety check from 75 certified car seat technicians. The event took place on Wednesday, corresponding with the Child Passenger Safety Conference that Bloomington was chosen to host earlier in the week.
The locations included each city’s fire department headquarters, the Normal Fire Station on Raab Road and a parking deck at State Farm Corporate South.
The latter location was where an expectant mother chose to check one more item off the list before her approaching due date.
“I tried to do it myself and got confused, and I saw an ad on Facebook and I’m here today to take full advantage of that,” said Sara Busing as she arrived to get her car seat fastened. “So when she’s born, we pass hospital inspection and can go home.”
The Car Seat Blitz was sponsored by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, in conjunction with the SIU School of Medicine, Normal Fire Department, Bloomington Fire Department and the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Shad Edwards, traffic safety manager for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, said out of eight common mistakes made when installing a car seat, almost half of them lead to the car seat fitting too loosely.
“When the car seat’s installed inside the car, you want to make sure it doesn’t move an inch side to side or front to back,” said Edwards. “The couple other very serious ones, it’s many parents and caregivers don’t know how to switch the retractor to lock the car seat or the seat belt pre-crash.”
He added that any sudden movement will lock a seat belt if it moves too fast, which protects passengers in the event of a crash. Technicians use a technique to change any non-driver’s-seat seat belt into an automatic locking retractor, so that it is pre-locked prior to a crash. Any ordinary person can also do this if taught how to.
“Lack of car seats, or being in the wrong car seat is the number-one cause of death and serious injury of children under the age of thirteen,” said Edwards. “So that’s why there’s a big emphasis on making sure that children are in the right car seat or a car seat at all.”
Illinois is also a primary enforcement state, which gives police the authority to pull people over for not wearing a seat belt. That offense leads to an automatic ticket, but if a child is found not to have a car seat, it also leads to a mandatory court appearance.
In order to get that citation dropped, one must see a car seat technician to sign off that a car seat has since been installed.
“We’re at about a 95% as a state,” said Edwards, in reference to seat belt law compliance.
Car seat installation is lagging a little behind, however. Edwards said even for those who do use car seats for their children, it is only about 1 in 4 that would be found properly installed.
If these statistics seem alarming, more opportunities may be coming in the near future.
“We’ll probably have some more events coming up, probably in September,” said Edwards. “One will probably be back here.”
