September 20 – 25 this year marked a time when parents and caregivers were highly urged to verify that their children’s car seats are properly installed. Last week (Child Passenger Safety Week) and until last Saturday (National Seat Check Saturday), September 25, certified technicians peppered the country providing free hands-on child safety seat inspections and advice. Parents were told to visit the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website (NHTSA.gov) for more information regarding locations they could take their car seats and receive personal assistance with proper installation.

These on-site inspections and trainings served as important awareness opportunities for child safety, and aimed to highlight that all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have laws requiring children to be restrained while riding in cars. In addition, according to the NHTSA, failure to read the child safety seat instructions, in addition to vehicle owner’s manual instructions regarding installation, could result in serious injury or death as a result of a failure of the child safety seat to be securely and/or properly restrained. According to NHTSA, 8,959 lives have been saved from 1975 to 2008 due to properly installed child restraints.

As part of this campaign and piggybacking off a national observance, TMN developed various materials to bring this important message to the Hispanic community. In addition to posters and earned media materials such as press releases and talking points to be utilized by NHTSA’s state offices and the public in general, TMN also successfully disseminated an article describing a hypothetical story of a Hispanic mother, and how properly installing her child’s seat saved her child’s life. The article has been picked up by top Hispanic media outlets and has reached thousands of Hispanic parents and caregivers about the importance of properly installing these seats. To date, TMN’s outreach efforts resulted in coverage in La Opinión, El Mundo and several others including Washington Hispanic, and Ser Padres blog.

In 2008, among children under age five in passenger vehicles, an estimated 244 lives were saved by child safety seats and adult seat belts. Research shows that child restraints provide the best protection for all children up to age eight. For additional child passenger safety tips, parents and caregivers can visit their local inspection stations and refer to the following 4 Steps for Kids guidelines to determine which restraint system is best suited to protect children based on age and weight.

And parents should always remember that children younger than 13 should ride in the back seat.
For more information on Child Passenger Safety Week, click here or visit the Facebook page.