I participated in a mandatory car seat checkpoint early Wednesday morning. The police pick a part of town where they feel there’s a problem with misuse/nonuse of child restraints, set up a road block, and send every vehicle with a car seat into a parking lot where eager child passenger safety technicians wait to tackle the fun stuff. As much as I enjoy doing what I do, I can’t say I was too eager since we needed to be there before 6:45a (I usually roll out of bed mumbling not-so-nice words at around 7:10a) and I squeaked into the parking lot just before 7a.
Setup was easy for us—just show up with our Safe Kids van and trailer in tow. We had a couple of infant seats, many Sceneras, a few highback boosters, and a handful of backless boosters to hand out; the police department provides us with the seats. Unlike previous mandatories, this one started off very slow. It took a good half hour before the parking lot was full. Most of the people pulled over were understanding and thankful, knowing that their kids were much better off leaving than they were when they pulled in the lot. Some people, on the other hand, were irate after receiving tickets for not having their kids buckled according to our law of 6 years and 60 lbs. One woman made it her mission to let everyone in the parking lot, including her children and everyone else’s, know that her vocabulary consisted of one word beginning with the letter F. I guess Little Miss Sunshine, as I dubbed her, was having a bad day.
About 50% of the kids we see at mandatories are completely unbuckled. We see a 100% misuse rate. Where
in the world does that 80% misuse rate come from that everyone always quotes for national statistics? They sure haven’t visited here. This is what we have driving around on our streets in my city. I’m glad we have the buy-in from our police force to do these mandatories. Even just a few years ago they stopped doing them for budget reasons, but they saw the light. It’s important work. I didn’t get a final count of how many seats we fixed today, but it was well over 120 in the 3 hours we were out there. So many kids riding safer today than they were yesterday morning.
(One final side note: don’t wear pjs when you’re driving your kids to school because you never know when you’re going to be stopped at a car seat checkpoint 😉 ).
All of you are COMMUNISTS! How many children have DIED from improper carseat attention? Worry about yourself and YOUR kids. What happens to your BABY’S NECK in a rear facing carseat in a rear-end collision? Same thing that happens if they were facing forward in a head-on collision.
Hi Charles,
I fail to see how participation in a socialist type of economic system relates to keeping children safe in vehicles. In any case, we’re all located in good ‘ol capitalist USA and, speaking only for myself, have only voted for candidates in the two major parties (with an odd exception like Ross Perot, perhaps). Anyway, many children have died from non-use and misuse of child restraints. Just look at the fatality statistics for leading causes of death from the CDC. So, perhaps you meant to say that we are ADVOCATES FOR PRODUCTS AND LAWS TO PROTECT KIDS FROM THEIR #1 KILLER? That is certainly true, but it tends to be pretty bi-partisan in terms of political support.
Also, the physics of a rear-facing carseat in a rear-end collision is quite different from a front-facing carseat in a frontal collision. Just look at any crash test video to see why. Plus, in severe crashes, rear-end collisions are far less common than frontal crashes. Perhaps the most important difference is what happens in a side impact, where rear-facing seats have the biggest advantage over front-facing carseats, based on a recent study. That’s because they tend to keep the head better confined within the child restraint, especially when there is a frontal component of motion (such as when you are moving through an intersection and are T-boned). Side impacts are also much more common than rear-end collisions in severe crashes.
It’s interesting all the comments the mandatory checkpoints bring up because it does bring about all kinds of rights issues.
Tanya, in a smaller suburb here, the police dept. recently stopped doing their frequent mandatories because they were being harassed by a citizen who claimed that what they were doing was unconstitutional. They’ve checked with their lawyers and they’re completely within our state’s and their city’s laws to perform these checks, but because he’s so outspoken, they’ve decided to hold off on them for a bit until he’s calmed down a bit. The city has a very small town feel, so it did create a ruckus.
Anne, we encourage people to call their employers while they’re waiting or to have their employers phone us later in the day if there’s a problem. We also give out “tardy” slips with our SK logo, date of event, and an official signature on it so they have an excuse. No one has called us or the police to complain about losing a job, though I guess there is the possibility that they may be afraid to if their immigration status isn’t legal. We also make every effort to work as quickly as possible. Due to their nature, these events are get-em-in-get-em-out events. For instance, one mom came up to me who had been waiting for a while (she parked without being told to so no one saw her or knew she wasn’t being helped) and said she needed to get her ds to school for breakfast. Because she was so insistent, I figured it was probably his only meal for the day, so I installed her Scenera for her. She had it nearly done correctly–just not tight enough and without the tether–I showed her what to do. And they were off 5 minutes later.
Simply, the car seat tickets get them into our court diversion class. There’s no way out of that. They have to take our 1 hour class: learn why a car seat is important, learn how to install their car seat, and have their seat installed on the night of the class. I don’t teach those classes, but I hear the instructors have them down to a science.
I don’t think they should have to lose their job.
You’d think they would mention it to the police and the police would call their work and vouch for them, or write them a “ticket” (not charging them for anything, but you get my point) letting their boss know where they were.
I think mandatory checks need to be more common.
I understand the being concerned about someone being fired for being late. I can also imagine the potential backlash against an employer for terminating an employee for something they couldn’t control. I think it’s one of those no win situations.
With voluntary checks, the people going to them probably already sense that they are doing something wrong. The mandatories get the people who haven’t a clue, or think that it’s all BS.
I do wonder how much of it sticks. What’s the “recidivism” rate, that is. How many parents get the ticket, get told what to do correctly, are given the seats appropriate for their children and then continue to disregard the information?
If we could get people to understand the real threat in cars… if we could get them to realize just thinking something won’t happen, doesn’t make it not happen… if we can get them to realize that there are so very many factors that go into who lives and who dies in crashes… If we could get folks to understand that car-seats and booster seats are NOT just random things picked by legislatures to make their lives more complicated, it’d be great.
So many people just view them as unnecessary, intrusions, wastes of time, it’s hard to get anyone to change their view.
Maybe the mandatory checks don’t matter all that much. Maybe they don’t change anyones mind, but if you’re seeing a 100% misuse rate, those kids are far safer for at least THAT trip than they were when they got in the car that morning, and that’s something. Because we can’t ever choose when we’re going to be in a crash.
And my point, I’ve lost again. While I’d be annoyed at being caught in a mandatory check (because, like everyone else, if I’m on the road early in the morning, I’ve got places to be), I do wish we had them around here. Far too many children ride in cars without proper protection. Far too many parents and caregivers are blind to the reality.
It’s sad, but true, the threat of a ticket persuades many people more than the threat of their child being injured or possibly killed. I figure it’s because you can imagine a ticket. Most people cannot imagine anything happening to their child.
And I think I ended up making my comment longer than the blog, sorry about that.
~Simply
I’m totally with you on the misuse rate – they sure haven’t visited my area, either. The (voluntary) seat check events I work at are huge, and I’ve never seen a seat that was installed properly and used correctly. One or two that were close, but most? Wrong.
I have mixed feelings on this. I love to see kids be safer, and wish there was more enforcement. But if you make someone late to work and they lose their job, what happens? What if they lose their job and they were on parole and because they lost their job they go to prison? I mean, I do love the idea– but doing it at a time when you might make people late, in an area where I’m pretty sure some of those people really need their jobs and have at-will employment, in a harsh economy, does not sit right with me…
Funny that you mention this! At the check I worked this weekend we had a random guy come up and start talking to us. He said he was a constitutionalist and went on and on about how TX was going to start using check points and how it was unconstituational. I finally caught on that he had come over to make sure that folks were here on a voluntary basis and we were not forcing anyone to have their seat checked. OY. He went on and on until we all eventually just got up and walked away (we were sitting on a curb eating).
They don’t do them here because the police department says it will create bad feelings and ill-will. I wish they would anyway. I’d rather a cranky adult than a dead kid any day of the week 🙁
I really wish they would do one around here! I’d proudly let them see my properly installed Regent and blurt out that I’m one of the only people using a car seat correctly =)
I would love it if we could get one of those set up here.
AND, exactly the reason why I at least throw on some sweat pants and a tshirt when I drive the kiddos to school.
Ya just never know what’s gonna happen.
I would kill to get one of those around here…….
I think they really need to do one of those around here!
I really wish someone would do that around here. I see so much misuse on a daily basis. It really makes me sad.