Programs: Child Passenger Safety

Car seats and booster seats, when used correctly, can save lives. Even though most parents think that they have properly installed their child’s car seat, over 90% of the car seats inspected at car seat check-up events have at least one misuse. Additionally, many children graduate to an adult seat belt too soon, and should still be in a booster seat.

Statistics and Impact

Car crashes are the number one killer of children ages 5 to 14 in the United States.
From 2004-2008 in Sonoma County, 5 children age 0 to 14 was killed and over 200 were injured from car crashes or incidents in or around cars.
In the United States during 2009, 1,314 children ages 14 years and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and approximately 179,000 were injured.

Efforts

The Child Passenger Safety action team has two main goals:

To educate parents and caregivers on how to keep their children safe in and around cars.
To train certified car seat technicians to teach car seat safety to others and advocate for policy change.