Florida Child Injury Law Blog

Summer is here.  Generally that means more families are traveling by car on day trips, long weekends and vacations.   Our daughter was in town recently with our young grandchildren. Her first priority was finding a car seat safety inspection station! Although our infant grandaughter’s new car seat appeared to be secured properly;  our daughter wanted to be sure. Did you know research shows 7 out of 10 car seats are NOT correctly installed?

 The American Automobile Association conducted a survey and found  76% of parents said safety is their main concern when buying a child safety seat but  the  majority of parents polled didn’t know the specifics in regard to placement, age and height recommendations. In a recent study of 3500 car safety and booster seat installations,  72%  of the safety seats were secured in a way that it could be expected a child would suffer injuries if  in a crash.

With all this in mind, here are some safe practices concerning child seat safety and a website to check the locations of child safety seat inspection stations in this area.

 Safety Checklist

•  Parents should ensure that children up to eight years old or four feet, nine inches tall should sit in a safety seat or booster.
•  All children 12 and younger should ride in the back seat of a vehicle.
•  The safest position for a single car seat is the center of the rear seat.

Florida law regarding safety requirements  for child car and booster seats  is more fully discussed in Chapter 1 of my free consumer guide, “When Kids Suffer Big Injuries: A Parent’s Guide to Child Injury in Florida”  available  on our Florida Child Injury Lawyer website.

Attorney James W. Dodson, working to make safety every child’s reality.

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