Tennessee Highway Safety Office Promotes National Child Passenger Safety Week to Educate Parents, Caregivers on Proper Methods to Secure Child Passengers

TENNESSEE – The Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) promotes National Child Passenger Safety Week to educate parents and caregivers on proper methods to secure and protect child passengers.

September 17 – 23, 2017, fitting stations across Tennessee will host car seat checks and outreach events to spread awareness and increase education throughout local communities. Click here to view the statewide list of fitting station events and locations.

“Child passengers are precious cargo,” said THSO Director Vic Donoho. “We’re seeing too many children riding in car seats improperly installed or wrong for their age groups and sizes. Even worse, some children are riding completely unbuckled. We must do a better job of protecting our children from preventable injuries. We encourage all drivers to visit a local fitting station to get their car seats checked.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), two out of three car seats are misused. Every 33 seconds in 2015, a child under 13 was involved in a crash. According to the NHTSA, motor vehicle crashes are a leading killer of children, and fatalities are on the rise. Additionally, 2015 data provided by the NHTSA showed that approximately 25.8 percent of children ages four to seven, who should be riding in booster seats, were prematurely moved to seat belts. 11.6 percent were unbuckled altogether.

“Too often, parents move their children to the front seat before they should, which increases the risk of injury and death,” said Angela Brown, THSO Program Manager for the Tennessee Child Passenger Safety Center at Meharry Medical College. “The safest place for kids under 13 is in the back seat.”

Lastly, the THSO wants to remind parents and caregivers to always register car seats and booster seats with the car seat manufacturer to receive notifications in the event of a recall.

For more information about child passenger safety, please visit www.tntrafficsafety.org/cps.