We want to help you have the best information available. Sometimes when you get information from a certified child passenger safety technician, you’ll realize it contradicts what other “ experts” told you about keeping your kids safe in the car. They are not necessarily an expert on injury prevention or car crashes. Doctors are a specialist in the medical field and treating a human body. On that note, you can’t trust your car seat safety information to your doctor either. Then you will know you are getting the best information available.
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When you go to get help with your car seat make sure you go to a certified car seat technician. The reality is unless you are a certified child passenger safety technician, you’re not aware of some of the nuances of different kinds of seat belt systems, different features on different car seats.
Infant car seat check how to#
Download our report: Common Car Seat Mistakes and How to Fix Them Where to turn for the best information? Maybe they have a child or two and they think they know how to correctly do a car seat. They do what they do because they want to help people and want you to feel comfortable. Meaning, when you show up at the firehouse for a car seat check, you may get a firefighter (or police officer or nurse, if you go to those places) whose heart is in the right place. Although our department was proactive, there are many departments across the nation that don’t have anyone on the department that is a certified child passenger safety technician.
Infant car seat check install#
At that time it was still common for fire departments to offer the service of inspecting people’s car seats and helping them install the car seat correctly.īut not every one on the department was certified. I got started as a car seat technician when I was still a young recruit firefighter back in 2000. Not every firefighter, police officer or nurse is a certified child passenger safety technician (aka car seat tech). One thing we hear often is, “well I took it to my local fire department” or “I took it to my police department and one of the guys came out and checked on it.”
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Now that can range from minor misuse to a misuse that can cause serious or fatal injury in a crash. say 3 out of 4 car seats are being used incorrectly. Who should you trust for your car seat safety education if not your local fire station? They teach the parents how to install the car seat in the car and how to put their new baby in the car seat properly.)Īnd parents may be getting misinformed. (Though some hospitals, like the one we used to work for in Denver, do hire CPS techs to work with new parents. They are putting themselves at risk for liability, which is why many hospitals insist that nurses NOT help parents put their child in a car seat.
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While their desire to help is really admirable, it could be bad for them and for parents. Unfortunately, some firefighters who are not CPS techs do help parents out of the kindness of their heart and their desire to help. But wait, my friend went to the firehouse and they helped? Some fire departments don’t do any car seat checks at all any more and some have a few firefighters or public information officers who are trained and do car seat checks at certain times. Many fire departments moved away from having trained Child Passenger Safety Technicians on duty.
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But not necessarily all the time or every firehouse or even every fire department. And sometimes you can go to the firehouse for a car seat check. It used to be said, go to your local fire station and have them install your car seat or check for proper installation. Just like you wouldn’t go to your neighbor to have him check your car seat just because he is Dad to three kids… unless you’re our neighbor. You wouldn’t go to your vet to deliver your baby just because he helped deliver a calf.