Beware the Unused Seatbelt, Even When Correctly Unused

What the heck kind of headline is Beware the Unused Seatbelt, Even When Correctly Unused? Well, I'll explain that (you knew I would).

See, when you bring your family to a Safe Kids child seat check station and we check 'em to make sure they're all traveling securely in your vehicle, we fill out a form that documents what we're doing. It's a way of making sure that we don't forget anything. Well, question #22 asks if we Discussed Unused Seatbelt Dangers. The question refers to one particular danger that you wouldn't expect, even when you are correctly leaving the belt unused. Honestly, though, there are several dangers related to unused seatbelts. First let's look at the Question 22 issue and then cover the rest.

When you install a child seat in your vehicle you're going to secure it with either the LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) system or the seatbelt, but not both. If you're using LATCH you'll be attaching those two hooks from the bottom of your child seat to the anchors located in the bight of your vehicle seat. Then, once you've attached the tether, you're ready to load up a kid. The seatbelt, in this case, is correctly used by not being used.

So, here's the potential problem. That unused seatbelt is just left hanging there, and some children have grabbed hold and used it as a plaything. If they pull it all the way out it can lock, just like it is supposed to. When it slurps back up into the retractor it can tangle around the child and potentially strangle them. The fix for this is to simply buckle the belt before installing the child seat. It'll remain securely behind the child seat and out of reach.

That's the issue that Question 22 is meant to address. Here are some other unused seatbelt dangers:

3. There's the smacking hazard posed by those heavy unattached lap buckles and latchplates left sitting on the seat. It's normally in the middle of the back seat of older vehicles. Unattached, they're left to swing wildly at the end of their webbing and smack into whatever is next to them in the crash. Simply attach the belt and pull it tight when not in use. Potential smacker eliminated.

2. If you have a booster seat in the vehicle and you're on your way to pick up its normal occupant, put the seatbelt around it and buckle it in anyway. Yes, even though it is not being used. See, that 20 pound seat will have a relative force of 600 pounds in a 30 MPH crash. You don't want 600 pounds of force hurling at you from the back seat. Buckle the seat in. And,,,,

The #1 unused seatbelt danger is to leave anyone in the vehicle unrestrained. In a crash, an unrestrained person hurls into whatever and wherever; often that means right out of the vehicle. Outside of the vehicle is a VERY bad place to be when a crash is happening. A VERY bad place to be. Plus, remember that 20 pound seat slamming into you with 600 pounds of force (at only 30 MPH)? Now think of a human and their heavy head being hurled at everyone else in the car. Easy solution: everyone is restrained properly all the time. Crashes happen everywhere.

Be safe.

The Doak TC Weekly Safety Reminder: Beware the Backpack

It's the Doak TC Weekly Safety Reminder with an advisory for anyone picking their kids up from school (or having friends or grand parents pick their kids up at school). Please have those kids stow the backpack before getting in the car.

No, the boy in this photo is not that tall and not normally sitting quite so close to the airbag deployment zone I'm assuming. However, with his overflowing backpack still attached to his torso, he's nicely placed for maximum smacking force when the airbag deploys because grandma's foot has slipped off of the brake because she's balancing little sister on her lap and progressing through a 50-car queue that has small children crossing through it. Wait,,,,,, did I just say balancing little sister on her lap? OK, one peril at a time: back to the backpack.

This is not an unusual scenario, by any means. This is what I have seen (and photographed) at school dismissal time all over the state. Hundreds of kids are spewed out the school doors clinging to their backpacks and then slurped up into the family vehicle and whisked away with barely enough time to pull the door closed behind them. No, they probably can't fit a seatbelt on that way, and no, they probably aren't in the back seat (if a front seat is available), and no, they may not even have space to sit down so they have to stand, and no, they can't possibly fit in a booster seat, and no, they're probably not traveling lawfully and no, they may not remain in the car if there's a crash. BUT, that car's going to make it out of the parking lot as fast as it can, and, heck- they're just going home, right?

Let's review: By law in Michigan, all kids under 4 must be in the back seat, and best practice tells us that nobody should really be in that front seat exposed to an airbag until at least 13. By law in Michigan everyone under 8 years old or less than four feet nine inches (whichever comes first) must be secured in a properly used child safety seat, most likely a booster at that age. And, by law in Michigan, anyone under 16 years old must be restrained via child seat or seatbelt no matter where they are sitting.

Let's review one more thing: No matter what the law is, crashes happen everywhere and kids get hurt; often needlessly. It honestly takes very little time to be safe. Stow the backpack where it needs to be, and stow the kids they way they need to be.

Be safe.

Beware the Daily "Carnival Ride" that Squishes Kids Like Toothpaste

Yup, there's a reason why little kids aren't allowed on adult carnival rides that fling them about at various speeds and smack 'em into barriers. The rides aren't made for little kids- that's obvious. There's also a reason why carnivals have rules for this and do not leave the decision to parents and care providers.

So, I was driving home from the farmer's market on Saturday and there was a big SUV approaching in the other lane. In their front passenger seat I could see a tiny head just poking above the dash. Couldn't see most of the kid attached to that head because they were hidden below. Couldn't see the shoulder belt because, well, it's designed for an adult so it was behind the kid. This ain't no carnival ride. It's variable speed ride being operated by a human within a highly unpredictable and unforgiving traffic environment.

When the crash happens, kid will be beset by a variety of violent forces. One will obviously be the airbag that is meant to spread crash forces over an adult human. Instead it will be crashing into a small human whose unrestrained head and torso will slam into it in ways the bag as never designed to respond to. It's like asking a kid to catch a screaming line drive hardball without a glove.

The other violent force that kid will be dealing with will be that lap belt that, prior to the crash, was positioned very nicely right across his tummy filled with all of those nice squishy organs. During the crash that tummy and those organs will be wrapped around the lap belt as it pulls through the squishy parts on it's way to contacting and stretching the spinal cord. Have a look at the toothpaste tube photo at the top of the page and imagine that. This is of course assuming that kid doesn't just slip right out from under the adult lap belt and get flung out onto the road when the vehicle flips over.

Now, I'm sure that the person driving the SUV is delighted to have their small child/grandchild sitting right up next to them in the front. It's probably right where kid asked to be, and we all want kid to be happy. And, of course, they're just driving to town.

Here's the law in the physical world: A child's body parts are not developed enough to cope well with crash forces in the front seat of a vehicle until they are at least 13 years old. They just aren't. The law in Michigan may say the kids 4+ years old can sit in the front seat, but, like the carnival ride, they just aren't developed enough to ride there safely.

Here's the other law in the physical world: Seatbelts do not normally fit humans until they are at least 4' 9" tall and weigh about 80 pounds. Until a human is that size, the seatbelt just does not normally fit. A good fitting and properly used booster seat places the lap belt low in the child's hips and shoulder belt across the chest in the proper location. In Michigan that's the law until the child is 8 or 4' 9". But, guess what- in a crash, the laws of the physical world trump the laws of any state until the person actually fits in that belt.

Children 4 - 8 who ride in boosters are 45 percent less likely to sustain injuries in crashes than children restrained by belts alone. If you could reduce a child's chance of getting the flu by 45 percent by doing something just as simple as using a booster seat, most people would consider that a pretty easy rule in their family.

So, beware treating kids like the toothpaste tube. Fortunately, booster seat manufacturers are getting much better at making these valuable safety devices. Next time I'll cover how to choose one.

Be safe.

Beware the Worries 'Bout the Wrong Stuff

According to Christine Barnes, the author of the Paranoid Parents Guide, parents are most worried about their children falling victim to the following five perils:

1 - Kidnapping

2 - School Snipers

3 - Terrorists

4 - Dangerous Strangers

5 - Drugs

These are all nasty perils to be sure, and when we hear of someone falling victim to them, it's shocking, albeit relatively uncommon compared to the actual top five causes of accidental injury and death for young people:

1 - Car Crashes

2 - Homicide (normally committed by a person who knows the child, and not a stranger)

3 - Abuse of some kind

4 - Suicide

5 - Drowning

So, what's a worried parent to do? It's pretty boring, so you sure you want to know? Ok, you asked. It's seatbelts and helmets. Yup, that same old dull stuff that we've heard about for so many years.

Still the number one way to accidentally injure or kill a child (worldwide) is to transport them recklessly in a car. Another is to set them hurling down a street, sidewalk, ice covered pond, snow cover hill or vacant lot without a helmet for when they fall. Yes, falls are still the accidental injury that emergency rooms see most often for all age groups.

National stories of kidnappings and terror attacks can leave us gripped with fear, and a debilitating sense of helplessness about how to protect our families. They're tragic and sensational, but by no means the perils that our kids face on a normal daily basis. We're not helpless to protect them from their most common perils. We can use good sense and the easily accessible tools that we've been given:

Put 'em in the back seat, buckle 'em up, know what they're doing, know where they're going, put the Blackberry or cell phone down and really listen to what they're saying, make 'em wear their helmet (just like you do, RIGHT?), and help them to be observant. You have way more power than you think.

Be safe.

If It Ain't Tight, It Ain't Right,,,, maybe.

So, how many adults does it take to install a child safety seat, and how tightly should they install it? Well, if you've been to some child seat check events you might deduce that it takes a large number of strong fire fighters jamming, pulling and heaving in such a way as to virtually weld the apparatus to the car causing the entire vehicle to shake when the seat is tested for tightness. Is that what it takes? Is that the correct method? Hard to say. Read on.

Those of us who have been at this (child passenger safety education) for a while were originally taught to test the child seat for proper installation by pulling on it at the spot where the seatbelt passes through the child seat (the belt path). If the seat didn't move more than an inch side-to-side or forward to back then it was considered a safe installation. It still is. Now, in most cases, a rear facing seat will flip up and down even when installed correctly, but that's a discussion I'll save for another time.

So, if the 1-inch rule is still in effect, what's the issue? Well, many of the long-serving technicians and instructors among us never really signed on to that 1-inch thing. We were all trained to put out knees in those seats and shove 'em as tightly into the vehicle as we could. Lot's of parents would agree. However, that's not how we teach new technicians. We teach them that the proper installation method is to simply press the child seat onto the vehicle seat with one hand and pull the belt (or LATCH connector) firmly. If the result fits the 1-inch rule then all is well.

This new method of instruction is considered appropriate for two reasons. First of all, the primary goal of child passenger safety technicians is to be educators, and not seat installers. We want parents and caregivers to leave an event with information about how to safely secure their entire family and the confidence to do it properly themselves. We do not want the process to appear so daunting that they'll never consider themselves qualified to do it on their own.

The second reason to consider the 1-inch rule to be sufficient is the actual physical dynamics of the crash. If you look at a crash test video with a child seat installed properly, you'll see that it separates from the vehicle seat as the harnesses (seatbelt or LATCH) holding it to the vehicle stretch with the crash. Yup, a perfectly installed child seat will move right off of the vehicle seat. So, that shelf liner that you used to make that child seat seem tight doesn't do anything at all in the actual crash.

So, I guess that convinces everyone that we don't need to weld that child seat to the car, right? Well, not so fast. New research and crash testing is demonstrating the possibility that the greatest reduction in crash forces transfered to the child is achieved by attaching the child more directly to the vehicle. In these crash tests, dummies restrained "correctly" endured three times the crash forces experienced by dummies attached directly to the vehicle with steel bands. Today's cars are designed to absorb the crash forces and direct them away from the occupants as much as possible. The assumption is that the crash dummies attached directly to the vehicle were more efficiently riding down the crash with the vehicle. Obviously, much more testing and research needs to be done.

Do I have you totally confused by now? Am I advocating tight makes right, or steady as you go? Well, neither, really. What's a mother to do? Here's what I would suggest:

1. Use a child safety seat all the time, and use it as best as you can. I'm still amazed about the crash reports I read where the child is ejected from the the vehicle or thrown about within it, and killed because there was no child seat being used. I've seen seats that experienced cracks and failures in crashes due to misuse, but they still ended up saving the child from death or serious injury. Some of these were even ejected from the vehicle. Use the seat.

2. Read the instructions. Yup, and read 'em both for the child seat and the vehicle. This goes for all of us technicians too. There's a great deal of good thought, testing and engineering going into these systems now. We'll get the greatest safety out of following the instructions and adapting to the technology changes.

3. There are two things to get tight to make it right. Many families work hard to get that seat secured in the vehicle tightly, but then leave Junior loose in their harness. That's probably the number one misuse that I see. Pull the harnesses tight. Junior won't mind, and if they do- tough.

4. Seek out the child passenger safety technicians in your town for assistance.

Crashes are violent and frightening events. Many of their effects are predictable and preventable, though. The injury prevention world is adapting and finding new ways of testing our vehicles and occupant protection systems. The safety rules that are true today or that were true a year ago, may not serve us as these systems progress. It's our job to be informed, keep an open mind and to adapt.

Be safe.

A View From the Blind Spot. Time to Review Setting Mirrors.

Yup, that's me, and I'm right in the driver's blind spot. So, if I had my side mirrors set the way many drivers do, you wouldn't see me there at all. What you also see in this mirror is my driver's head restraint showing where my seating position would be. When I'm driving, my side mirrors show me what many other driver's side mirrors don't: the stuff in the traditional blind spots. Traditional mirror setting tends to give drivers a similar view out all three primary mirrors. They see the area behind the car.

I just finished my coursework for certifying as a drivers ed instructor in Michigan. We also just held a CarFit clinic for seniors nearby. In both of these programs we instruct drivers how to set their mirrors according to the BGE method. BGE stands for blind spot & glare elimination. Now elimination is a bit of an overstatement. The traditional blind spots and night-time glare are greatly reduced using this method. However, it in no way is a replacement for frequent scanning and continued head checks. Bikes, pedestrians, motorcycles and others will still tend to get lost in the blind spot even when mirrors are set this way.

So, you want to give it a try? It's simple.

- Sit in the driver's seat.

- Position both of the side mirrors so that they reflect out away from the car as far as they go.

- Lean your head against the driver's side window.

- Adjust that side mirror back until you just start to view the side of your vehicle.

- Lean you head to the middle of the vehicle.

- Adjust the mirror on the passenger side back until you just start to view the side of your vehicle.

That's it. Now, it's going to seem pretty strange at first because your side mirrors will no longer show you the view you've seen in them for the last 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 + years. Try it, though. Have a friend walk into the spot beside your car that was formally missed by that mirror. You probably picked up 2 - 6 feet or more of extra viewing.

As I said, it's by no means a replacement for the physical head check, but gives a great boost to your mirror scans and extra warnings. Some drivers love it and others hate it. The drivers ed kids don't know any different and so they just think that's the way it's done (unless their parents "retrain" them).

Be safe.

Hot, Sweaty and Smiling. West Michigan’s Newest Child Passenger Safety Advocates

This child passenger safety thing is amazing. I just spent another couple of weeks helping instruct a new crop of freshly certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians in Holland, and we did that during the hottest soupiest weeks of the summer. We all loved it.

Now, the final day (day four) of Child Passenger Safety Technician training ends with four hours spent actually doing inspections and educating parents. That means spending the afternoon in the back seats of hot vehicles, reading vehicle manuals, educating parents, wrestling with stubborn vehicle belt systems, wrestling with stubborn, tired and fussy children, redoing paperwork we’ve messed up on, washing hands and cleaning up everything when done.

That’s all the stuff that the group you see in the above photo just finished doing, and, just like all of the rest of the classes I’ve been involved with, they loved it. They loved the chance to practice what they just learned, but what they really loved was the chance to educate parents and see children leaving the event safer than they arrived. Yup, the parents and kids were just as hot and uncomfortable as the technicians, but many of them expressed sincere appreciation for the services that they had just received. So, what’s not to love about that, eh?

And so, what would the new technicians like you to think about if they were speaking to you through this blog? They’d probably ask you to keep your littlest ones seated rear facing for a couple of years (or until they reach the rear facing limits of the seat they’re using), tighten the harnesses holding the precious cargo in place (since they probably haven't been tightened since winter) and use booster seats until junior is at least 4 foot 9.

Be safe.