Why don't parents follow current child passenger safety recommendations?
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive June 2007:
Why don't parents follow current child passenger safety recommendations?
Seriously, why not? I'm sad, sick and tired of reading stories like this. 
When a seat belt is a killer
Child safety experts recommend children under 4 feet 9 inches remain in a booster seat, even if they are older than 7, he said. Experts also "strongly recommend" children 12 years old and younger not sit in the front seat of a car because of the danger posed by deployed air bags, he said.
 I think some people just assume it will never happen to them.
That just breaks my heart.
A couple of things I don't understand. The mother stated that she wasn't aware of the Hawaii booster seat law. So she would only protect her child by using a booster seat only if it's the law???
The mother also states that car rental companies should ask if you are travelling with a child and provide booster seats to comply with the new law. Ummm...I know for a fact that you can obtain car seats or booster seats for your children from rental car companies in Hawaii. All you do is ask. These are our children and we need to make sure they are safe, not blame everyone else for not keeping them safe. This woman is making it out to be other people's fault. (yeah, stories like these make me a bit angry.)
Enchens,you're so right!! People just want to blame others for their own stupidity.I'm surprised at how many little ones go into taxi's without the proper restraints.I had to pay an extra $10 for a booster seat once from the taxi company...a total rip off but my dd is worth waaaaay more than the extra $ I had to fork out.
This is so maddening.
When I pick up my kids from school I see SO many children just hopping in and buckling up with out a booster. These are K and 1st graders. Some even sit in the front seat. I makes me so angry.
A month or so ago my kids and dh decided that they/the kids don't need boosters anymore and that they were to big for them. So i let them sit in the back seat and buckle up. I showed them how the seat belt goes across their neck instead of the chest, and how ds was sliding down and not sitting still. They still refused, so when they went into the house i just put the boosters back in.
I don't care if he "looks to big for it" or if she is 8 yrs old and doesn't need a "baby seat". She's 47 lbs and like 48 inches tall, she's a peanut! Way to small to just sit in the normal seat.
****Trina here is a question. My dh's Explorer has adjustments for the seat belts. You can move it up and down to make it fit the kid. Are boosters still recommended for cars like that?
Trina, what *I'd* like to see is a mandatory class or information disseminated at every hospital where a child is born. And, have it documented that the information was given to them. A lot of folks "don't know" what booster or infant seat, etc is appropriate. It's so sad. Nothing was said to me in Alabama...you just have to assume that parents care enough to know.
Exactly Heidi, most people have the "oh everything will be fine, it won't happen to ME" mentality. But they do have to care enough to find out what is the SAFEST way for their child to travel, not the most CONVENIENT.
People are lazy, period. My friends 3 1/2 year old and 5 year old (same size as Kaitlyn) aren't even in seats. She mocks the fact that Kaitlyn is still in a 5 point harness but I don't care. I'd rather not have the "What if's" running through my mind.
A bit off topic but when Kaitlyn was around a year old we went to Tijuana for the day. My first time ever in Mexico. We parked our car and didn't realize that it wasn't the best walking distance to where we needed to go from the CA/Mexico border so we decided to take a taxi. When the guy asked us if we wanted a ride I asked him if he had a car seat. He said yes. So we went to the car and he opened the door. I asked him for the car seat and he looked confused. He pointed in the car and said "Car seat!" He thought I was asking if the car had seats! So, a few miles away from our car in a foreign country, I decided "It's only right over the bridge to where we need to get. It will be alright." WRONG! I had no idea cab drivers in Mexico literally play bumper cars racing to where they need to go. They are RUDE, RIDE, RUDE drivers. And dangerous! I held Kaitlyn so tightly and was literally scared for our lives. Of course, when you take a taxi somewhere.... you must take it back also. I was too scared to get in one and was contemplating walking over the bridge but I was pretty sure i'd end up getting hit by a car or something. DH ended up talking to a cab driver and telling him my concerns and it was fine on our drive back. Anyways.... that's my useless car seat story. I'll never go to Mexico with kids again because of that!
When Sarah was about 10 months old, one of the cars needed servicing, overnight, so we were down to one car. I had a co-worker drive me to Gary's workplace, so I could get his car, with the carseat, before I went to the hospital daycare to pick up Sarah and go home. It was a bit of extra hassle, but I knew Sarah was safe. One of my other (child-less) co-workers thought I was nuts, for going through that extra effort. I didn't listen to her.
Just a few years ago, it was okay to take a 4yo/40-lb child out of a car seat. My children just sat in car seats with seatbelts. The booster thing is something fairly new. My kids were fine, but maybe we were just lucky.
****Trina here is a question. My dh's Explorer has adjustments for the seat belts. You can move it up and down to make it fit the kid. Are boosters still recommended for cars like that?
Bellajoe, Yes, boosters are still recommended. My van has shoulder belt adjusters, but the seat belts still don't fit my kids correctly without boosters. Although the shoulder belt adjusters adjust the shoulder belt portion of the seat belt they do nothing to improve the lap belt fit or the vehicle seat fit as shown here in the 5 Step Test diagram.
So she would only protect her child by using a booster seat only if it's the law???
I think I feel the law is there to protect us, they have the "safe" reccomendations. I realize now when it comes to child seats that is not the case. In texas when my older two were infants, the law (in tx) was child seats until age 2 and then they only needed to be in seatbelts. My oldest was little so she stayed in a car seat probably till she was 3. But with my middle kid the day of his second birthday we let him switch to a seatbelt. I thought nothing of it. It was the law, and so many people here don't even use seat belts. Well we moved to ohio about a year later, their education is so much better, TV ads work. I started doing my own research and promptly went at bought my children booster seats, and became a car seat convert! But we would come home and we have several family members, one an er doc. I would comment about car seat usuage and they would say, no no you are wrong the laws are different here, etc. They really just didn't get it.
So I do think being lazy is a component. But the reality is we all have a bit of take the path of least resistance. I mean really we would all be safest if we wore full pads when we walked down the street in case we fall, but most people don't. We tend to follow what society does and says.
And honsestly it would of never crossed my mind to use a car seat in a taxi, especially when we have piled 4 people into the back seat. I guess sometimes I feel like that layer of stupidity will protect me in a crash 
Kaye, you have "the law" and then you have what's called "best practice". Best practice is the law, plus. You hit the nail on the head that education is the key.
When my kids were little it was "20lbs OR 1yo". So we turned them around at about 6 months. They were 20lbs! (they were heafty babies, who slimmed down once they learned to walk and got mobile! lol) I wouldn't do that now, though. My kids were also in boosters until they were 10 or 11yo. I used to joke that Robin would be the only kid being dropped off at middle school still in a booster seat! lol But, they were (and still are) light weights. They do both pass the 5-Step test now, so they're in the regular seatbelts.
I do feel horrible for this mom and her poor little boy who had to die a terrible death. I do feel the lack of education is what we really need to focus on. We need to get the word out. I know it's out there--I've seen it. Just not much and not often. There does need to be better education and stricter laws. I'd love to see mandetory car seat safety classes for expectant parents, especially those with their first child, but the reality is they wouldn't be able to enforce it. I just went to a car seat safety class at our local hospital a couple of weeks ago. It was a free class. The majority of the class was expectant parents--moms AND dads (there were actually a couple dads there alone). The instructor we over all stages of car seat and booster use, focusing on infant seats because that's what most of the people in the class would be using for the first 12-18 months. These were ALL first time parents. I can tell you, they learned quite a bit and I learned some things, too.
I'd love to see more tv ads and more magazine ads that address car seat safety. Even flyers at schools and such. The word needs to get out.
We have gotten flyers when we were at the dr. office and also from the preschool teachers about car seat safety, and when to use car seats and boosters etc.
I thnk I have also seen a "use a booster seat" ad on t.v. too.
It sort of makes me laugh to think that when I was 1 yr old we drove from Ohio to Yellowstone Nat'l Park with me in the waaay back of the Pontiac Station Wagon in the play pen! My 4 brothers and sisters were squished in the back seat. I don't know how that worked....maybe one of them sat in the way back with me.
Can you imagine the looks we'd get if they tried that in this day and age? We'll of course it would be illegal now too.
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