Attention parents, grandparents, baby sitters, aunties and those who drive with children passengers. Child Passenger Safety Week is September 18-24 and culminates with National Seat Check Saturday on September 24.
Cars.com Winners
Cars.com announced its Car Seat Honor Roll. Each year, Cars.com’s Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians install car seats in nearly 100 new car models. These Car Seat Checks test each vehicle’s LATCH system and its ease of use by installing an infant seat, convertible seat and booster seat. Cars are graded on an A to F scale.
Out of 84 model-year 2016 and 2017 vehicles tested in Cars.com Car Seat Checks, only six have made the Cars.com Car Seat Honor Roll. These six cars earned the top score of A in all of our Car Seat Check categories, setting them apart as the very best vehicles for car-seat installation. The winners are the 2017 Ford Escape, 2017 GMC Acadia, 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid, 2016 Jaguar XF, 2106 Mini Clubman and 2016 Toyota RAV4.
New Guide Resource
With more than 2,600 children under 13 involved in a car crash every day, or one child every 33 seconds, parents need to be extra vigilant about keeping kids safe in cars. And while most families put kids in car seats, the latest research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that 59 percent of car seats are not installed correctly. To bring parents easy-to-access expert advice to protect their children in cars, Safe Kids Worldwide is launching a new resource today, the Ultimate Car Seat Guide.
The Guide, developed with support from General Motors, gives expert guidance to parents, particularly new parents, on the important decisions they face when choosing and using a car seat. It offers parent-friendly tips on how to fit a child into a car seat and how to know when it is time to move to a new type of seat.
Based on the wisdom gained from checking nearly two million car seats at Safe Kids Buckle Up events, the Guide provides parents the latest best practices to give kids the best protection. Advice covers all stages of a child’s development, from the first car seat until the child is ready to ride with a seat belt.
In September, Safe Kids will host nearly 500 car seat events and inspection stations across the country, offering guidance from Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians on proper car seat and booster seat installation and usage. Parents and caregivers can visit SafeKids.org to locate an event in their community.
Safe Kids Worldwide is a nonprofit organization working to prevent childhood injury, the number one cause of death for children in the United States.