Proper Use of Car Seats Is Important To Stay Unharmed During Accidents
If you are a parent with an infant or a toddler, this is for you.
Jenna Rabberman, a mother to two children shared a photo on Facebook in 2017. It showed a wrecked car which clearly had a horrible accident. Luckily, Jenna’s sons (two and a half years old, Beckett, and six weeks old Brooks) survived the accident. In fact, they came out ‘completely unharmed’ and it was all because they were tucked in car seats.
Jenna’s story was shared 100,000 times and she might have saved just as many lives. Nothing emphasizes the importance of car seats with your child more than this story does.
Alisa Baer, or ‘The Car Seat Lady’ as she is called, told us she often sees children safe and sound after a road accident, just because they were tucked in properly in their car seats. Baer further told us that The Car Seat Lady advocacy group successfully set up about 45,000 in more than 30 years of its work.
“Car seats are very useful when used,” Baer said, “but even more useful when installed properly.”
If we think about it, car seats are a simple enough step we can take to ensure our children’s safety. Rabberman said that she may be a hassle-free parent sometimes but not when it comes to the safety of children. She said that a thing being as simple and safe as a car seat should not be passed over. Else, we might end up feeling sorry just because we thought the seat wasn’t important enough.
With this being said, let’s take a look at the things that are often ignored when it comes to our child’s safety in the car seat.
Turning too soon
Sometimes parents think their child is big enough to turn from rear face to front face or from a booster seat or a harness belt to a seat belt alone.
Not using a tether strap
The forward-facing car seats are equipped with a tether strap, and in the United States, these car seats can be secured with the strap to three places. Baer told us that this tether is essential since it prevents head injuries which are usually common by minimizing head movement of the child.
All buckled up
You need to make sure that everyone, child or adult is safe in the car. Let’s say there is a crash and someone in the car was not wearing the safety belt. That person could be the one to cause severe injuries to others as well as getting injured himself given that unbelted people are three times more likely to die in a crash than belted people.
Snugness
One more thing Baer said was that the seat should be tucked in properly and the child even more tucked in the seat. After all, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
As a last note, Rabberman did suffer from minor injuries and it will be some time before she is relaxed in a car again. But the lesson she taught us all was totally worth it.
Call AMBER HALL LAW
If you or someone you know have been the victim of an accident, contact Tallahassee personal injury attorney Amber Hall at (850) 701-8850.
