Cops Conduct Safety Checks Of Child Car Seats
LINCOLNWOOD (WBBM) -- Checks of car seats by local and state police are nothing unusual. But almost everyone comes away with a lesson learned.
Saturday was typical. Parents, their cars and their minivans were lined up when the seat check began at 8 a.m. at the Lincolnwood Fire Department.
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Inside the fire station, certified troopers checked the seat installation to see if the seat was installed properly, if the seat was correct for the child being carried and if the seat was beyond its expiration date.
Illinois State Trooper Claire Pfotenhauer said many parents do not realize that the seats come with an expiration date of six years.
"Today, there's a seat that we took away from a family that expired in 1994," she said. "Those seats are no good. They need to be replaced."
Pfotenhauer said the seats themselves are far safer now than they were 10 years ago or longer. In addition, she said, the seat plastic and belts begin to wear out from age alone, not necessarily use.
But she said even the newest seats will not work as intended if installed wrong.
"About 95 percent of the people (who come into the seat checks) do not install their seats correctly," she said.
How do the troopers know? Pfotenhauer said each has taken a 32-hour certification class.
If the troopers need 32 hours of training in order to install a seat correctly, how can a parent have any hope of doing so?
"Some are really serious mistakes and some are not," she said.
The most common mistake is installing the seats too loosely. She said properly installed, a car seat should not be able to move more than an inch in any direction.
Illinois state law mandates car seats of some form for children until they reach the age of 8, weigh 80 pounds, or are less than 4'9" in height. Children under 11 months of age or 20 pounds are required to be placed in backward-facing car seats.
The seat checks give parents a way to learn how to install the seats correctly without risking tickets. In fact, because of a state law that took effect Jan. 1, those who are stopped and ticketed now can be required to go to a safety check to learn how to install seats correctly, with paperwork to be filled out and returned to the sentencing judge.
The state also can provide up to one car seat per family to low-income families. Those seeking to determine if they can qualify can contact Carmen Flores-Rance at the Illinois Dept. of Human Services by calling (312) 793-4662 or by sending an e-mail to carmen.flores-rance@illinois.gov.
