How Child Safe Is Your Car?

There’s nothing we wouldn’t do to protect our kids. We hold their hand when they cross the road, we set strict curfews to make sure they’re safe when playing outside. The savvier Moms out there might even use a parenting app to make sure that their online conversations are safe. But when it comes to car safety, the waters can get a little muddied. Many experienced drivers who just aren’t terribly car literate may be driving their children around in unsafe vehicles without even realizing it. Even if your car feels absolutely fine when you’re driving it, disasters can often strike without warning with serious safety implications for you and your whole family.

Everyone thinks that it won’t happen to them… until it does. Here, we’ll do over some important safety considerations that you should assure yourself of before you let your child in the car.

The worrying truth

The domestic statistics paint a damning picture of how safe our children are on the road. In 2015 some 666 children aged 12 years and under were killed in car accidents and just short of a staggering 132,000 were injured. Most of these tragic deaths and injuries could have been avoided if their parents had taken proper safety precautions. Make sure your child doesn’t end up another unfortunate statistic by tirelessly checking the following…

Car seats

Government data indicates that the installation of an appropriate car seat reduces the risk of infant death by 71% and the deaths of toddlers aged 1-4 by 54%. Hence, it’s vitally important to ensure that your child is strapped into a reliable car seat. Fortunately, child car safety is a growth market with manufacturers clambering over each other to bring safer, more comfortable and more parent friendly car seats to the market every year. You can check out a selection of this year’s highest rated models right here.

Seat belts

Seat belts save more than 15,000 lives a year in the United States and if your child is too old for a car seat, it’s vitally important to ensure that they buckle up in the back. Over time seat belts can become worn and frayed which may not seem to impede their day to day function but can seriously harm their effectiveness in an emergency collision. If your seat belt looks worn then you should replace it as soon as possible.

Wheels

Wheels & tires can often be compromised without the driver realizing. Hitting curbs and potholes in the road at speed can cause buckling in the wheels that can impinge on the tire and eventually lead to a blowout. Likewise tires can be compromised without the driver even being aware of it. Cars that spend a lot of time in the sun or are seldom driven can get cracking in the sidewalls that can render them unsafe (even if the tread is fine).

Brakes

Very often we’re unaware of how spongy and unresponsive our brakes are until we get them changed and notice the difference. Brake discs and pads should be changed (or at least checked) roughly every 2 years or 20,000 miles.

With just a few simple checks you can ensure your car’s child safety and drive with peace of mind.