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Checkup events - Event listing

Nationally certified child passenger safety technicians staff community events designed to help drivers understand children's vehicle safety needs, based on their ages, weights and developmental stages. Motorists generally make appointments to attend scheduled, publicized checkup events in convenient community locations. A driver brings his or her child or children, the car seat or booster seats they currently use, the vehicle owner's manual and the car seat instructions. Nationally certified child passenger safety technicians follow a standardized checklist to ensure that all safety aspects relative to the child, the car seat and the vehicle seating location are explored. The motto for every event is, Children Leave Safer Than When They Arrived!

Checkup event inspection and education are free to the public. However, replacement car seats are not free and not always available. If a replacement car seat or booster seat is needed and available, a contribution may be requested, based on the seat's actual cost. Safe Kids Buckle Up grants may minimize cost. Contributions are used to purchase additional car seats, so the program can continue for other families.

Parents are encouraged to bring a new car seat or booster seat to the event if they know their child has outgrown the current car seat or if the car seat they currently use is damaged, has been in a crash or was obtained secondhand with no history. The certified technicians working at the event will help the parent learn to adjust the harness and properly place the car seat or booster seat in the vehicle.

Why it's important

Riding unrestrained is the single greatest risk factor for death and injury among child motor vehicle occupants. Among children ages 14 and under killed in motor vehicle crashes as occupants in 2004, 50 percent were not using safety restraints at the time of the collision.

Misuse is common. An estimated 85 percent of children who are placed in child safety seats and booster seats are improperly restrained. Misuse includes, but is not limited to, using an inappropriate seat for a child's age and size, placing an infant under 1 year or under 20 pounds in a forward-facing seat, not securing the seat tightly in the vehicle and not securing the child correctly in the seat.

The back seat is safest. It is estimated that children under age 13 are up to 36 percent less likely to die in a crash if they are in a rear seat of a passenger vehicle.

Find Out More

To find a Safe Kids coalition near you, please visit our Web site at www.usa.safekids.org
Visit Safe Kids Worldwide

1301 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004-1707
Phone: 202-662-0600
Fax: 202-393-2072
www.usa.safekids.org
www.safekids.org

Event listing