There is nothing inherently wrong with a used child safety seat. The main concern is if you don’t know the history, then it is possible it may have been in a crash or damaged. It may be fine to take a gently used car seat from a sibling or good friend. Buying one used at an auction site or second-hand store can be risky. Here are some questions to consider even if you are just borrowing a seat:
Do you trust the previous owner(s) with the life of your baby?
Is the seat in good working condition with minimal wear and no loose parts?
Do you know that the seat was never in a crash, dropped or otherwise damaged?
Do you know that cleaners and solvents were never used on the harness system?
Did you answer “YES” to all the questions and do you feel comfortable that it will protect your baby in a crash?
It should also be fine to sell or pass along your own used car seat to a friend or relative, provided you can answer “YES” to these same questions and know that you’d trust the seat for your own baby. If you aren’t certain about one of the questions, anything is possible. That eBay listing for an “open box” or “like new” car seat may have been returned after a drop or crash, you just never know if you don’t know and trust the previous owner.
While we generally recommend that you buy a new carseat, we understand they can be expensive. We do list models in every budget category in our Recommended Seats Guide. Budget convertible and combination child safety seats can be found for under $50 and boosters from $15. In some areas, local health departments, Safe Kids organizations or other non-profits may distribute free or low-cost car seats. We also recognize that a used car seat is very likely to be safer than no car seat at all, but the questions above are still very important to the safety of your baby.
If you have any questions about the safety of a used or expired car seat, please contact the manufacturer for more guidance. Here are some other resources:
Child Passenger Safety advocates are not out to terrify you into buying a new seat when a perfectly good used one is available. We just want to make sure parents and caregivers know how to identify a second-hand car seat that may be safe to use for your most precious cargo.
October 20-26 is National Teen Driver Safety Week. Keeping kids safe in cars has been our focus at CarseatBlog for over a decade now. That doesn’t stop when they move out of a booster into a seatbelt! Did you know that the risk to older teens is much greater than the risk to younger children in motor vehicles? In fact, driving and riding with other teen drivers is simply the most dangerous routine activity that many teens will ever do in their life. Unlike kids in some younger age groups, car crashes are still the #1 killer of teen drivers. There were almost 2000 deaths and over 230,000 injuries to teens age 16-19 in car crashes in 2017 in the USA. By comparison, there were 270 deaths and roughly 41,000 injuries to children age 5-8 in the same period according to CDC Data.
For young children, child passenger safety advocates have a guideline that we prefer to put the least protected occupant in the most protected seating position if possible. For example, a child in a rear-facing carseat generally is very well protected from side impacts, so they could be placed in an outboard seating position, while an older child in a backless booster might ride in the center seat if appropriate. Is the same principle even more important for teen drivers, given the much higher number of injuries and fatalities?
Of course, teen drivers are always in the driver seat, but what vehicle are they driving? Are they in mom’s newer SUV with the top safety ratings and crash avoidance features? Maybe they don’t get to drive the newest car in the family, so they use dad’s sedan from five or ten years ago that still has good safety ratings. Or, are they in a used compact car from 15-20 years ago that may have been in a crash with frame damage? Is putting the least safe driver in the safest vehicle available to them a mantra we should be teaching?
Yes, it’s tough to let your 18 year-old drive that shiny newer car, knowing that it’s more likely to get some dents and scratches. It’s even tougher to let your new teen driver take the wheel of the newest car in the household, with a much greater risk of it being wrecked in a crash. The problem is that inexperienced teen drivers also have a far greater risk of being severely injured. Those advanced crash avoidance features may be what can keep them out of a crash. If they do crash because of inexperience or distractions, those top safety ratings may be exactly what they need to avoid serious injury. We have a list of safe and more affordable used and new cars for teen drivers.
If you are worried about your children in carseats being injured in a car crash, consider this table below. In 2017, about 1,200 children age 0-14 died in motor vehicle crashes. With any contagious disease, that would be considered an epidemic with immediate public outcry and government action. Nearly 6,700 young adults age 15-24 died in crashes the same year. For any cause of death, this is nothing short of a crisis. According to the CDC, “Per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are nearly three times more likely than drivers aged 20 and older to be in a fatal crash.”
You did your best keeping your young kids in carseats and safe in crashes. It’s so much more important to do the same once they start driving and riding with other teens! Please, consider the risks before making your teen drive the least safe vehicle available to them in the family.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced a recall of more than 4,500 WAYB Pico car seats because the headrest can potentially detach, leading to an increased risk of injury in a crash.
WAYB has received 11 reports of headrests that have detached from their carseats. The problem seems to be that in WAYB’s original design, a 2-pin system holding the headrest can fail. No injuries have been reported.
Defect: The headrest can detach from the carseat.
Seats recalled: All seats manufactured between 3/1/2019 and 5/12/2019. After that time, WAYB began using a new design with a 1-pin system and a reinforced headrest.
Remedy: WAYB plans to replace the headrest on recalled seats, but as of this writing, the details of this plan have not been released. We will update with more information when it becomes available.
What to do: WAYB says that the safety risk is low. The company says it will be obvious if the headrest has detached, and that the product is fine to use as long as the headrest is still in place. However, in a Safety Recall Report, WAYB states, “In some cases, consumers noted that the headrest was loose, causing them to inspect the headrest, at which time it separated from the rest of the product. A loose headrest may indicate that a breakage of at least one of the tubular frame members has occurred. If both tubular frame members in the headrest are broken, pulling up on the headrest will likely lead to a separation of the headrest, making the breakage clear to the consumer.”
This makes it sound like a broken headrest might not be immediately noticeable to the consumer. Because of this, CarseatBlog recommends that owners of affected models contact WAYB at help@wayb.com or text or call them at 888.924.9292 if you have any concerns prior to receiving additional information from WAYB on the recall. If you are still concerned, you should discontinue use of an affected Pico carseat until the headrest is fixed.
We will continue to update this report as more information becomes available.
ForB dba WAYB (WAYB) is recalling certain WAYB Pico child restraints manufactured between March 1, 2019 and May 12, 2019. The headrest’s aluminum tubular frame can break allowing the headrest to detach.
Remedy
The manufacturer is still developing a plan to replace the headrests on the affected seats, free of charge. The recall is expected to begin September 30, 2019. Owners may contact WAYB customer service at 1-888-924-9292.
Notes
Owners may also contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), or go to www.safercar.gov.
Today is National Heatstroke Prevention Day. It started 6 years ago to bring attention to children dying in hot cars. With every instance of a child left alone to die in a hot vehicle, we’re shocked, saddened, angered, and left wondering how a “good” parent could possibly forget their child. Many armchair parents are quick to comment about how they’d never forget a living, breathing child in a car while experts plead again to take steps so that it doesn’t happen again. This is a relatively new phenomena since frontal passenger airbags moved rear-facing children to the back seat; however, children have been dying in hot cars for much longer than that.
In the first 10 minutes a vehicle has been sitting in the sun, the temperature inside rises about 19°. After 20 minutes, it has risen about 29°. Before long, the inside temperature can be well above 140° depending on the outside air temperature. Cracking a window doesn’t matter: the sun’s rays heat the interior fixtures of the vehicle: the dash, steering wheel, seats, etc., which cause the air molecules to heat up. It’s science we all learned in grade school but have probably long forgotten. Hyperthermia, or high body temperature, occurs when the body’s temperature goes over 104°. A temperature over 107° can be deadly and it happens very quickly with children, whose bodies heat up faster than adults’.
So far this year, 24 children have died in hot vehicles. While we don’t have specifics for this year, historically 54% were forgotten and 26.3% got into an unlocked car and couldn’t get back out. The numbers trend upward with 2018 being the deadliest year, but there’s no rhyme or reason to each year’s count. Two things are certain: heatstroke deaths rise during the warmer months—though to be sure, deaths do happen during cooler months—and parents are distracted to the point where their brains forget there’s a child in the car.
Have you ever forgotten to take a daily pill? What about grabbing your lunch or drink on your way out the door? Have you set your phone down, walked out of the room, then forgotten where you put the darn thing? (No? Must be an age thing. Just wait—it’ll happen!) Perhaps you’ve gotten home from running several errands and left the bags in the car. If you have done any of these things, then you are not immune to forgetting a child in the back seat of a car. You can be as high and mighty as you want, but the same brain processes that go into remembering these routine daily things are the same processes that go into remembering the child in your back seat. And if you have a child, you probably have some level of sleep deprivation to add in as well.
Try this the next time you drive a routine route: pay attention. Pay attention for the entire drive of that routine route. Do you remember driving past that stop sign? How about making the 2 turns? I will fully admit that sometimes as I drive routine routes—from the store, for instance—I look, but I am not seeing. As I drive I make sure there are no obstacles in front of me or vehicles coming at me, but I don’t remember how I got from point A to point B. And this is how children get forgotten.
Read this Pulitzer Prize-winning article: Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? It’s long but it’s well-worth the read and will give you understanding into what happens when someone forgets a child in the back seat. As University of South Florida professor of psychology David Diamond explains, “Forgotten Baby Syndrome” is a real thing and it has to do with the way our brain memory systems interact. He offers 2 situations and explains how brain structures interact:
Condition 1: Parent 2, who may not normally take child to daycare, is tasked with daycare drop-off duties. The basal ganglia (the habit- or repetitive-based memory system—the one which allows us to remember how to tie a shoe or braid hair) suppresses the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which are the decision-making and multi-tasking systems that work together to make new memories. The hippocampus analyzes the situation for new information and the prefrontal cortex takes information and allows us to make new plans (e.g., need to swing by the daycare and drop off the baby). Since the habit-based memory system is in control (brain: must get to work), the parent is in auto-pilot mode and forgets there’s a child in the back seat.
Condition 2: Parent is under stress and forgets child in the back seat. In this instance, the amygdala (consider this “emotional” memory) activates under high pressure conditions which causes interference with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (see how we need the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex to make new memories?). When the parent is thinking about an extraordinarily busy day or errands they need to run before work, or they receive a phone call, etc., that may be enough to stress the amygdala. Further, sleep deprivation may cause the basal ganglia to go into overdrive and make habit-based memories, such as driving to work and forgetting there’s a child in the back seat, come through.
There are ways to make sure children aren’t forgotten in back seats; you can get around your brain’s dysfunctions. It’s by setting up layers of protection so that if you do forget, you can be reminded.
If your child is missing, check your pool first, then your vehicle (including the trunk!) – check neighbor’s pools and vehicles second
Arrange to have your childcare provider contact you when your child doesn’t show up that day. Make sure they have multiple contact numbers to call/text and that they keep calling until they reach a live person.
Keep all vehicles LOCKED at all times, even when they are in the garage and keep your keys/key fobs out of reach
Keep your wallet AND cell phone in the back seat when you are driving
Another option, put one shoe in the back seat when you are driving—you’re not going to walk away from your vehicle without your other shoe!
Make it a habit to always look in the back seat when getting out of the car
Teach your children that it’s NEVER okay to play in the car or to go into the car to get something without a grown-up
Teach your children NEVER to hide in the car or inside the trunk
However, also teach your children to blow the horn repeatedly to attract attention if they are ever trapped inside a vehicle
Use available technology: Some Evenflo carseats, the Cybex Sirona M, and the Baby Trend Secure Snap Fit have technology available to let you know if your child has been left in the carseat. Some vehicles also have backseat reminders, and Hyundai has a rear seat sensor system in some 2019 model year vehicles. Other vehicles, like Teslas, have air conditioners that will automatically come on if the interior temperature reaches 105° and they can be set to stay on after the vehicle is parked (Tesla states not to leave children unattended in their vehicles).
Let’s make it clear that cars aren’t babysitters: children shouldn’t be left in them to nap for any amount of time unattended and they shouldn’t be allowed to play in them either. Kids can get trapped too easily in vehicles or can put a vehicle in gear and a tragedy can happen in a split second. This goes for pets too!
And if you choose to leave a comment, which we always encourage, please do not be judgmental or we reserve the right to remove it.
Are the manual and labels all present?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has 
