Angie Rinock cringes when she sees a family tooling down a highway with a small child in the back seat wearing only a seat belt.
State Farm employees like Rinock today are inspecting child car seats as part of a summer-long program in the state aimed at ensuring parents are using child car seats correctly. The staffers took a four-day class through the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration to be certified to make the inspections.
“Being an insurance company, you see car accidents everyday involving kids that are not restrained properly,” said Rinock, a company spokeswoman. “We want to make sure we can educate the public.”
Michigan law requires child car seats for children younger than 4 years old, but installing the seats in vehicles can be tricky.
Often, parents mistakenly put the seats facing the wrong direction or use the harnesses on the seats incorrectly, Rinock said.
Last year, State Farm employees inspected nearly 10,000 car seats at 200 locations across the United States and found only 12 percent were installed correctly.
Now State Farm, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and community groups are pushing for lawmakers to pass new regulations that would require booster seats for children 4-8 years old. The boosters cost about $15 and would keep lap belts off children's stomachs, where they can dig in and harm internal organs.
In Michigan, parents are encouraged to use booster seats once their children turn 4 years old.
Those pushing for the new laws would like kids 4-8 years old to be required to ride in booster seats with harnesses designed for bigger children. The push is on because many parents do not realize children in this age group are at risk if they wear only seat belts.
“We call it seat belt syndrome,” Rinock said. “People put their children in a seat belt in the back seat or worse, they let them ride in the front wearing a lap belt. The belt rides up on the stomach and if there is a crash, it can damage internal organs.”
In 2001, Partners for Child Passenger Safety researchers looked at 204,028 rashes in which children were injured. The study found that children who rode in booster seats were 59 percent less likely to be injured than those not using the seats.
“Children graduate out of car seats when they are 4 years old and then they are forgotten,” Rinock said. “We think it is important that there is a law.”
