Families started lining up early to find out if their children’s car seats or booster seats were properly installed and to find out the safest way to secure kids in the seats last Friday as part of a car seat check-up. San Benito County Public Health collaborated with the California Highway Patrol and Child Injury Prevention Services to put on the event. Families who had the wrong type of seat for the children or an expired seat had a chance to purchase a new low-cost replacement for $25.
Juan Ruiz showed up at 11 a.m., one of the first parents to arrive for the 2 p.m., check-up in hopes of being one of the first families through the line. He said he heard about the event through a school flier and on the radio.
He said he came out “to get instructions for the car seat, to know they are safe.”
Ruiz was learning how to best secure his 5-year-old son in a booster seat.
Sabrina Sandoval came out to the event with her mother in a minivan, with her daughter and niece.
The pair purchased a new car seat for her niece because it was expired and learned tips on how to install her daughter’s car seat properly. As a trained technician put the seat into the car, parents were encouraged to watch. The technicians also secured the children in the seat to show parents how to put the harnesses on properly.
“I learned something new,” Sandoval said. “You have to push down on the seat and push back.”
Trish Tice, a visiting technician who works as a school pupil transportation safety coordinator in Redwood City and lives in Morgan Hill, said 85 percent of the car seats she sees are installed incorrectly.
“Every seat has directions and every car has different directions,” she said, adding that she encouraged families to read both the car seat instructions and instructions from their car manual.
Samela Perez, the public information officer for San Benito County’s Public Health Department, said the technicians attend a week-long training to become certified. She said they had eight technicians working at eight stations on Friday. San Benito County has three certified technicians and the other five were volunteers from other nearby counties, such as Tice.
“We are fortunate to be able to offer this and it’s all volunteers,” she said.
The car seat check-up came after six months of outreach to local families on a new law that requires children to remain in booster seats until the age of 8 or until they are taller than 4 feet, nine inches. Erika Vallin conducted community outreach and provided a diversion program for those families who received a ticket for not having a child in a car seat. The programs were paid for with a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The car seats were purchased by the Child Health and Injury Prevention Coalition and money collected at the event will go to future car seat check-ups. The cost of car seats can range from $25 up to $200.
Erika Amezcua needed four booster seats and a car seat for her brood of five children under age 8. She said she heard about the event from a friend who works in public health.
“Every car is different,” she said. “The seats are different. You have to make sure the seats are really tight and for the boosters you have to use the shoulder strap.”
She had also learned that since her Suburban does not have head rests in the back seat, she needed to use booster seats that have a back attached to them rather than the ones that just have the seat part. She said it also helped that the technician was appointing each child to a certain spot in the car.
“Every day it’s a struggle over who is going to sit by the baby and who is going to sit by the right window or left window,” she said, adding that seat assignments would help.
