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Child Passenger Safety Week 2011

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Welcome to Child Passenger Safety Week!!

This week all my posts will be about car seats, car seat installation and how you can keep you and your children safe while riding in a vehicle.

Across Canada there are various laws that regulate the use of car seats.  These laws state what height, weight and age the child must be to use different types of car seats.  The biggest difference between provinces is the use of booster seats.  Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut don’t have any laws requiring children to use a booster seat.

Canadian Car Seat Laws

Here is a good chart showing the laws across Canada (pdf).

Safe Kids Canada – Give em’ a boost!

Safe Kids Canada’s Safe Kids Week is focusing on the use of boosters this week and are trying to chance the laws about their use across Canada.

Here are some general tips to know about your car seat!

I am going to try to share as many tips as I can about all car seats. Let’s start with some general info about car seats and some tips that apply to all seats.
  • Always have the proper child seat for the height and weight of your child
    • Depending on where you live in Canada, the laws are a little bit different.  Please see this table for what is required in your province
  • There are many different seat types:
    • Infant – rear-facing only
    • Infant/Child – can be used rear- and forward-facing
    • Infant/Child/Booster – can be used rear-, forward-facing and as a belt postitioning booster
    • Child/Booster – forward facing only; 5pt harness and belt-positing booster
    • Booster – can be backless or high back
  • Always read the manual for vehicle that it is being installed in.
    • not all cars allow seats to be installed in all positions in the rear seats
    • not all positions in a car allow for the use of the tether
    • not all position in a car allow for the use of the LATCH / UAS
    • the owner’s manual will state where they have designed car seats to be installed
  • Be sure that your car has a tether bolt when using a forward facing seat
    • Cars made after September 1999 will come with the top tether bolt
    • cars made before that can have a bolt installed at a dealership
  • The LATCH system has been standard in vehicles since September 2002
    • you need to check your vehicle’s owner’s manual to see if your vehicle is equiped (there are usually 2 “button” markers on the seat to show where the anchors are
    • you also need to see which positions are allowed to use those anchors.  Some vehicles do not allow for the center position to borrow the anchors intended to be used by the outboard positions
  • You can use either the LATCH or the vehicle’s seat belt  — use the one that give you the tightest fit
  • The car seat should not be able to move more than 1 inch side to side at the belt path (where the LATCH or seat belt) goes through the seat
  •  Put your weight in the car seat when installing it (kneel in the seat) — this will push the seat into the passenger seat
  • Always check the car seat every time you put your child in – you can never be too careful
  •  In winter time, do not put bulky winter coats on the children as this causes the seat straps to not be tight enough (during a collision the amount of pressure applied will compress a snow suit and make the straps really loose) – even though you think the seat belt straps are tight enough, they’re not.
  • This also applies to 3rd party “cuddle bags” for infant seats – do not put anything behind your child between them and the car seat.  The ones that just go over the car seat are much safer.  (read about compression above)
  • We do not recommend using second hand car seat without knowing the history of the seat.
  • If a car seat has been in a collision, NEVER use it again.  It MUST be replaced.
 

This is only the tip of the iceberg!  Please ask as many questions as you can!

 

Also you can follow me on twitter for more car seat information: @OntCarSeatInfo

Tomorrow I’ll share info, tips and tricks about installing and using infant and rear-facing car seats.

Lucky 7s Week 5 – Safe Kids Week and a The First Years True Fit Convertible Car Seat

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Thank you so much for joining in the festivities!
If this is your first visit to my site, please read this post to see what’s going on!!Week 5??  Wait! What happened to 3 and 4?
This contest will be running for 3 weeks (because it’s super important) and will close at the end of week 5.
Week 3 and 4’s contests are still coming… don’t you worry!

Safe Kids Week this year runs from May 30 – June 5, 2011 and the theme this year is Child Passenger Safety with a focus on the use of booster seats.

I’ve partnered with Safe Kids Canada and Young Drivers of Canada to help get this message out to drivers, parents and care givers who transport children in their cars.

Young Drivers main focus is “teaching Canadians how to drive and survive” but they truly appreciate the importance of passenger safety.  I was thrilled when they approached me to work with them for Child Passenger Safety week.

During Child Passenger Safety week, I will be sharing information with you about car seat safety, passenger safety, driving safety and even what to do when your little one becomes old enough to be a driver too.

We will end the week by giving a way a new The First Years True Fit car seat! *

As a car seat tech, the features that I like the most with this seat are:
  • has a rear-facing weight limit of 35lbs which allows for extended rear facing
  • has a 65lb limit when used forward facing with a 5pt harness
Both of these details I will be discussing in a lot more detail in my Child Passenger Safety week posts.

Here is a great introduction to the True Fit:

Thank you to everyone who entered! The contest is now closed.

 Be sure to check out
the other amazing prizes will be
given away in the weeks ahead!
Fine print: Due to Car Seat laws, this contest is open to Canadian’s only. It will close Sunday June 5, 2011 at 11:59pm EST.  The winner will be contacted by email and will need to respond within 24 hours to claim the prize.
* Disclosure: As a Car Seat Technician I cannot recommend one car seat over another.  This seat was chosen by Young Drivers as the seat to be given away to readers. 
I am not being compensated in any way for this post.  The opinions are my own.

car seats & seat belts save lives

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This is not a new statement. This should be common knowledge. Many of the people reading my blog have probably always known that it is illegal to ride in a vehicle without a seat belt.

January 1, 2011, Ontario celebrated the 35th anniversary of the seatbelt law.

Before the law was put into effect, only 17% of people wore seatbelts.  And today, nearly 93% of Ontarian buckle up.*

The fact that there are people who still don’t wear a seltbelt is beyond me. I’ve been using a seltbelt for so long, that it’s instinctual to get in a car and put it on.

Annual Seatbelt Campaign

Starting Wednesday, April 13, 2011, the OPP and municipal police services, will be stepping up their seat belt enforcement, with a focus on child restraints (car seats).

The OPP will be focusing their efforts on child restraints during this campaign to raise awareness about the need to properly restrain children in a vehicle. A properly used child seat reduces a child’s risk of injury in a crash by as much as 75 per cent, yet many child car seats are incorrectly used or improperly installed.

When used correctly, a booster seat provides 60 per cent more protection than a seatbelt alone. In a collision, children using seatbelts instead of booster seats are three and a half times more likely to suffer significant injury, and four times more likely to suffer head injury. **

And to help make sure that care givers are using their car seats properly, OPP, Ontario Police Services, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, and other road safety partners (including me) will be holding a

Car Seat Inspection Clinic

at Sherway Gardens
from 7am-10am.
For more info, see the Facebook event.

If you are not going to be the in the Toronto area, please let me know and I’ll try to find a car seat clinic close to you!

For more information about:

Please keep your kids safe!  I’m always open to questions about car seats, so please ask away!

* Source: CTVNews: Ontario’s seatbelt law to celebrate 35th anniversary
** Source: newswire.ca

Huge car seat recall!!

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Dorel, a major child restraint manufacturer, has issued a huge recall affecting almost 800,000 seats in Canada and the USA!

** Let me take a moment and remind all parents to register their car seats — this will allow the manufacturers to contact you if there is ever a recall of the seat **

The affected seats were manufactured between May 1, 2008 and April 30, 2009

Models affected:

Maxi-Cosi Mico
22371CMJR, 22371CPHT, 22371CLYP, 22371CPNG

Safety 1st Enspira
22453COGI, 22458CNYC

Cosco Alpha Omega
22153CBNG, 22163CMSN, 22163CSGT, 22192CJOL, 22192CSNP, 22C15TUX, 22C26BNG

Eddie Bauer 3-in-1
22C75EBN, 22C76SHL

Safety 1st Alpha Omega
22470CTTN, 22471CPHO, 22551CBLA

Cosco Alpha Omega Elite
22168CHTR, 22168CRGO, 22C51HMR

Eddie Bauer Deluxe 3-in-1
22715CMTT, 22754CHPN, 22756CFMT, 22756CLRS, 22757CLNG, 22758CFRK, 22768CBYT, 22768CPST, 22768CSNW, 22790CCGT, 22790CCHL, 22790CSNW, 22C71BGL

Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite
22411CBLL, 22455CJTT, 22456CTTN, 22465CBMT, 22748CRDH, 22749CCAO

Schwinn All Terrain
22181CUGO

Safety 1st Vantage
22564CNTR3

Eddie Bauer Comfort
22868CSNW

Eddie Bauer SureFit
22-659CMTT

Models Affected:Travel System Model No.Infant Seat Model No.
Eddie Bauer Endeavor Travel System01190CFRK22659CFRK
Eddie Bauer Endeavor Travel System01190CSNW22659CSNW
Eddie Bauer Endeavor Travel System01190CWPR22659CWPR


Issue:

The centre front adjuster mechanism on the above mentioned restraint systems may not allow the adjustment webbing to lock in place which can result in potential loosening of the harness system. The locking clamp of the adjuster may not rotate freely and the adjuster strap may pull through the adjuster in the lock direction. If the harness system loosens, the resulting slack may reduce the effectiveness of the restraint system in a motor vehicle collision. To date, there have been no reported injuries associated with this issue in Canada.

What to do:

All of the details and pictures can be found on the notice posted by
Go there for information on what do if you have an affected seat.