BCAA

hot topics Precious Cargo Boost your knowledge of child safety seats by Ian McNeill with parents and caregivers unwittingly using such restraints improperly by ���not attaching the seat correctly in the vehicle or having the seatbelt too loose or putting the harness in the wrong slot ��� either too high or too low,��� says Marg Deibert, senior child passenger safety instructor with the BCAA Road Safety Foundation (RSF). To address these and other common mistakes, the RSF has developed a B.C. first: an online Child Passenger Safety Basics course aimed at all adults who transport children, including parents, caregivers and professionals. The six-hour interactive workshop uses pictures, videos and audio to illustrate and explain the basics needed to properly secure children in any vehicle It was a momentthat ended two (such as problem-solving strategies for the lives and changed another three forever. proper use of seat belts with child car seats While driving across the Fraser Valley���s and booster seats); outlines unsafe practices; Mission Bridge in March 2005, a car crossed and offers additional guidelines for keeping children as safe as possible the centre line and struck the when on the road (including vehicle Maureen Girard and Know some related information on what her family were travelling in Restraint happens in a crash). Partici��� killing the other driver and On average, 1,400 youngsters pants can then assess their Girard���s husband instantly, under age nine are injured and four are killed in vehicle knowledge with a test that and leaving her with a permaincidents in B.C. every year. requires 80 per cent to pass. nent disability and neverYet Transport Canada reports (Note: there is no penalty for ending pain. Yet the couple���s that child car seats and failure. Nobody who ���fails��� two children, both of whom booster seats ���� when properly ��� used ��� are the most effective loses their right to transport were buckled into child safety tools for preventing such children; the high pass score seats, came out of the crash statistics. In fact, research is simply a reflection of how with hardly a scratch. ���Mitchshows that the risk of death and/or serious injury in a important the material is in ell, who was one at the time, collision can be reduced by as ensuring child safety.) had some minor scrapes; Jormuch as 87 per cent when a Designed to complement dan, who was three, had a child is properly secured in an fractured arm. But they both BCAA RSF workshops already infant or child safety seat, while booster seats reduce left the hospital that night,��� offered, this online workshop the risk of injury among foursays Girard. is also part of a much broader to eight-year-olds by up to Infant seats, child safety strategy for making B.C. roads 45 per cent. seats and booster seats for safer for all. ���We���ve had some older children all work. In excellent success with BCAA���s fact, they help youngsters survive crashes Child Passenger Safety Program,��� says RSF that in the past would likely have proven President and COO Mark Donnelly. ���At the fatal. Still, ICBC estimates that as many as same time, we think there���s a need to confive per cent of British Columbians do not tinue to reach out with this message: For our use them when transporting children. And, children���s sake, please do it right and make according to first responders and the medi- it safe.��� ��� bcaaroadsafety.com (click ���Online Learning���) cal community, incorrect use is widespread, BCAA p32-33_HotTop.indd 33 School of Hard Knocks Dr. Jocelyn Pedder, an expert in impact biomechanics, is the driving force behind an ICBC usability rating system for child restraints now used in the U.S. and other countries. Here, one of B.C.���s top child-safetyrestraint specialists explains why today���s child and infant seats save lives. WW What was travel like for children and infants before child restraint systems? JP: Often tragic. Babies and children were seriously injured or killed in what we now call ���survivable collisions.��� Today, they���re coming away from such incidents uninjured. WW Why is that? JP: Because of the proper use of new infant and child restraint systems, which hold infants and children securely in place and, in a collision, reduce the risk of injury from an impact within the vehicle while preventing their ejection from the vehicle. WW Why are rear-facing seats used? JP: Infants have underdeveloped neck and back muscles and heads that are large and heavy in comparison to the rest of their bodies. Rear-facing infant seats give the necessary support and protection, and, in a frontal collision, distribute the force of impact so an infant can ���ride-down��� a crash. Children placed in forward-facing seats too soon risk catastrophic head and neck injuries, which is why those up to two years of age should be placed in rear-facing restraints ��� secured in the back seat, never in the front seat with an airbag. WW Toddlers and children often ���graduate��� to adult seat belts too soon, right? JP: Yes! Young children are too small for seat belts, which are designed to fit adults with the lap belt low across the pelvis and shoulder belt angled across the chest. And on children, poor fit can result in abdominal and lumbar spine injuries and misuse of the shoulder belt. A shoulder strap cutting across the neck, for example, indicates a child who needs to be back in a booster seat or child car seat, not using an adult seat belt. And when travelling by cab or non-family vehicle, at home or overseas, that same car seat or booster seat should travel with them. ��� �� I.M. ��� Westworld >> S p r i n g 2 0 1 3 33 13-02-05 9:11 AM

• Cover