In Peques and Más we take into account the need for children to go well secured in your child restraint devices. There is no excuse to stop worrying about their safety, and we read a few days ago that (according to a study by the Mapfre Foundation) 'four out of every 10 children killed in a traffic accident did not use protection systems'.
But nevertheless We must also look at details (large or small but equally important), because they are the ones that will make us all feel calmer. From 'Family and Road Safety' they ask about the errors of installing the child seat in the car. And it is that beyond knowing the specifications related to the group that corresponds to our children according to the weight, or taking into account the recommendation as to not carrying loose objects in the car, these tips come in handy.
Installation errors of the child seat in the car
1.- Travel with the child in arms or sitting on the lap or knees of adults, is the most frequent and (also) very dangerous. Whether the adult is tied with a belt or not, the consequences for the child can be terrible: projected against the dashboard or windshield, or be crushed by the person holding it.
2.- Let them travel without using the child seat, making exceptions: on short trips, when they protest, when traveling with a family member ... If you don't give in or make exceptions, then the children understand that they have no alternative and assume it without major problems. It is a vital lesson and if the child learns from a young age that sitting in his chair is essential, he will do the same when he grows up and has to wear a seat belt.
3.- Give them a bad example and don't wear the belt ourselves. Children learn by imitation, if an adult does not use the belt, he is sending the children the message that “using the chair or putting on the belt is not important and, when one wishes to do so, it is not necessary to use it”. Children, especially the youngest, are attentive to all our gestures and habits, even the smallest and without often noticing.
4.-Go too early to a higher child seat group: Especially serious is the case of parents who leave too early the group 0+ seat in which the child looks back, which is the safest orientation, to start using a group I seat facing forward (perhaps, simply, to be able to see your child's face in the rearview mirror of the vehicle). In the event of a frontal collision, serious injuries to the weak neck or cervical vertebrae of the child could occur.
For this reason, it is highly recommended that children travel looking back as long as possible (but provided that the child seat allows it and has not been too small for it). Children under one year of age and 10 kg must travel ALWAYS and without exception looking back
5.- Install a child seat facing backwards in a seat with active front airbag. It should never be installed in front of a front airbag - except if it has been previously deactivated - a child seat or chair facing backwards: in case of opening the airbag, it would catapult backwards and at a very high speed to the child seat and its fragile occupant.
6.- Leave excessive slack when attaching the child to the child seat. A harness or belt with slack can be very dangerous for several reasons: first, because the slack increases the forward movement of the child in case of braking or frontal collision and, on the other hand, because it makes it easier for the child to slip down (which can cause the harness or belt, for example, to be too close to the occupant's neck).
7.- When the seat harness is reinstalled, following an incorrect path. If, when removing the upholstery to wash it, we also disassemble the harness (this is not always necessary), and do not follow the instructions when replacing it, we can cause the child to leave the seat.
In this link you can see the list with all the errors (19 in total), you will read for example that we should not use a used or second-hand seat without knowing 'its history', or that the booster seats / cushions should not be placed in places with a two-point seat belt.
We hope that all this information is useful to you, what is clear is that we must all become aware of the need to increase the safety of children during traveling (short or long) by car.
