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Transporting Toddlers
Why It's Important to Buckle Up Little Ones the Right Way
By Brenda Ruggiero
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
1-800-424-9393
DOT Auto Safety Hotline
1-888-DASH-2-DOT
Call your local State Highway Safety Office.
Colella got involved with child passenger safety issues seven years ago. "It really goes back to a family tragedy in 1994 when my sister was in a crash and lost one of her children -- her 3-year-old daughter -- as a result of a child safety seat and a car that were incompatible," he says.
Another common mistake is turning the child forward-facing too early. "The experts in the field, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, crash reconstructionists and safety advocates, feel that children should ride facing the rear as long as possible, because it's much safer," says Colella. "Children in Sweden, for example, ride facing the rear until they're 3 and 4 years old, and they have a very low injury and fatality rate as a result. Basically, the longer a child can ride rear-facing, the better protected his or her spinal cord is in the event of a collision."
In the United States, the majority of convertible child safety seats can remain rear-facing until the child is 30 or 35 pounds. They can then be turned around and used as a forward-facing seat until the child is 40 pounds. "The problem is a little gray area: parents can turn their children around at 22 pounds -- most of the child safety seats allow that --but it's really better to keep the child rear-facing up to the rear-facing limits of the seat," says Colella.