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TUESDAY April 6 , 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels March 12, 2004 Protective ... to a point By Steve Zimmerman Ashland Daily Tidings Would it surprise you to find out that over 73 percent of all child safety car seats are installed improperly? Firefighter Paramedic Jennifer Hadden of the Ashland Fire Department demonstrates how to correctly install a child seat in a car. Satsuki Doi | Ashland Daily Tidings Child restraint use is up, but improper use of these safety devices continues to be high, and that's why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is launching a new campaign to get parents to use the seats - and use them correctly. Child restraint use has increased considerably since a study in the mid-1990s looked at restraint use for children weighing 60 pounds or less. Between then and now, restraint use has increased from 50.6 percent to 71.5 percent for children in that weight category. Tragically, nearly 12 percent of children were completely unrestrained and thus at great risk, according to NHTSA. In Ashland, the fire department is doing its part to help educate the public about the proper use of car safety seats for children. The fire department has seven trained technicians ready to help properly install and use car safety seats. Jennifer Hadden, firefighter/ paramedic and administrator of the car safety seat program at AFD, said the biggest problem is with sitting the seat properly in the car. "Someone is here every shift, so if anyone needs a car seat installed or needs a new car seat, they can find someone to help," she said. "The biggest problem is not getting the car seat in the car tightly. It is simple if you know how to do it. You just put your weight on the car seat and then tighten it. "Even when I had my son, I did not know how to put the car seat in. If you read the instruction book, it will tell you how to do it. If it is not installed tightly, the child flops over anytime you take a corner." Hadden said the reason to tighten the seat is because it is a pre-crash positioner. "It is designed to give your child the best protection it can in case of an accident," she said. "You are getting your child ready for an accident." Another problem is the passage of car seats from one child to another or one family to another. "There is a shelf life now for car seats," Hadden noted. "It is six years. If you get a used car seat you don't know the history. If it has ever been in an accident you should not use it again. The straps are designed to stretch one time and then they are done. Plus you could have cracks in the plastic so if you do not know the history, you do not know if there are structural defects you cannot see." Whether to install the seat in a front or rear facing position and in the front or back seat is also something that causes confusion. Hadden said there really is one simple rule. "Anytime you have an airbag in the front seat of your car on the passenger side, you should not have a child seat in front of it," she explained. "If they are 12 years old and younger, they should be in the back seat. It is more important with the rear facing seats. Having them in the front seat in front of an airbag has led to a lot of deaths. "The whole thing with this is preventable deaths. Why take a chance with your child? Just keep them in the back seat, in the middle if you can because of side protection." Hadden explained that for an infant, five pounds to 20 pounds, it is usually a rear-facing seat. "After one year and 20 pounds they can be forward facing. They will also have a five-point harness with the car seat and it is good to 40 pounds, although some are being made to 65 pounds. After 40 pounds, you take off the straps and are in a high back booster. They are made to fit the child into the seat belts that are integrated into the car. The booster lifts them up so the lap and shoulder belt we use fits them right." Hadden added that all car seats that are for sale, regardless of cost, are federally tested and meet the same stringent requirements. People who want to make sure their child seat is properly installed can call the department to have the seat checked. "All they have to do is call between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and even on weekends," Hadden said. "And we can also do it after 5. We have held clinics in the past and they have either been packed or no one shows up. So we like to schedule people to come in and we give them a quick lesson. We show them how to do it and then let them practice." To schedule an appointment, call the Ashland Fire Department at 482-2770. 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