Why should I use child safety seats and safety belts?

Even a relatively minor crash can be an extremely violent event.An unrestrained passenger can be thrown with a force that is several times his or her weight. Crash forces can also cause vital internal organs to shift violently, allowing for additional injuries. Properly used safety belts can help to minimize a passenger’s motion in a crash, preventing ejection, distributing crash forces over the strongest parts of the body, and protecting the head and spinal cord.

Since vehicle safety belts don’t fit the physical and developmental needs of young children, appropriate child safety seats are necessary. All states and territories of the United States have child occupant protection laws in place. Because they are only minimal requirements, however, most state laws do not fully represent “best practice”. We must remember that laws vary from state to state, but the laws of physics remain constant. Crashes do not become less violent when we drive across state lines.

Child Car Safety Seat Checks -

Did you know that according to national averages, approximately 4 out of every 5 child car safety seats is installed incorrectly? These installation errors are grave enough to contribute or cause injury or death to your child in the event of an otherwise survivable crash.

If used correctly, child safety seats are 71% effective in reducing deaths for infants in passenger cars and are 54% effective in reducing deaths for children ages 1 to 4.

Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for children of every age from 6 to 14 years - due in part to the fact that most kids are unbuckled or improperly restrained in vehicles. From birth to age one, restraint use is 97 percent, for ages one to four it is 91 percent. From age 5 to 15, restraint use falls to 68.7 percent, and over 47 percent of fatally injured children ages four to seven are completely unrestrained. One study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that only 6.1 percent of booster-aged children were restrained in a booster seat.

The City of Oak Creek Fire Department now has a program that allows City of Oak Creek Residents to make an appointment to stop by Fire Department Headquarters located at 7000 S. 6th Street to have their child car safety seat checked to ensure that it meets current standards and regulations.

In order to schedule an inspection, please call Anna Kelly at 414-570-5630 for an appointment. Walk-ins will not be accepted and inspections will be conducted for City of Oak Creek residents only.

For answers to your most common child car safety seat questions (and other related information), stop by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Child Passenger Safety (www.nhtsa.dot.gov) or the National Safe Kids Organization (www.safekids.org) websites.