According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, four out of five car seats in the United States are not installed properly.
An important motivation for fostering the growth and development of our community is to make it a better place for our children to grow up. The successes of this community mean nothing if we cannot pay it forward to make a better life for our children. Ultimately, we want to keep them safe as they grow up, and, in today’s world, children are all too often faced with numerous challenges to their safety and health.
With all the potential dangers and risks in the world, it may be a surprise to learn that the leading cause of childhood injury and death in the United States is motor vehicle crashes. Not only that, but the percentage of children killed from a motor-vehicle crash is higher on average in South Carolina than it is in other states across the country. If we are truly trying to protect our children and build them a better future, we must keep them safe on the road.
The best way to prevent childhood injury or death in these accidents is by what you can control: safe car seats. But, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, four out of five car seats in the United States are not installed properly. Infant and toddler car seats are designed with safety in mind, but a seat that is not installed correctly will not protect the child. Correctly installed car seats can reduce the risk of death by as much as 71 percent for infants and 54 percent for toddlers.
Car seat safety is a passion for our family. We have been proud to partner with Safe Kids Upstate, a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, to raise awareness of childhood injury prevention here in the Upstate over the past 20 years. Since 1988, when Safe Kids was founded by Dr. Marty Eichelberger, a pediatric trauma surgeon in Washington, D.C., the organization has helped reduce the U.S. childhood death rate from unintentional injury by 60 percent.
It’s encouraging that so much progress has been made. But as long as there are new babies, and new parents, there is a need for education and support. Today, Safe Kids Upstate is a part of the Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health & Advocacy and we are leading the charge locally to create inspection stations where parents can have car seats checked by certified technicians to ensure they are installed correctly.
Thanks to support from Kohl’s, nine inspection stations are available across the Upstate, and we have inspected more than 15,000 car seats. There are Upstate families who have had their seats inspected, experienced an auto accident and, because of their correctly installed seat, the children in the seats did not sustain serious injuries. This direct positive outcome is exactly what we are hoping for with the creation of this program. To find a location near you, visit www.safekidsupstate.org/carseat.
Earlier this month, we celebrated the opening of a permanent car seat inspection station at Greenville Memorial Hospital. This is the first hospital-based station in South Carolina and is the result of collaboration with several partners, including Kohl’s and Safe Kids Upstate.
Our hope is that this location will allow new parents to get their car seats inspected before ever leaving the hospital. It will keep children safe from day one, give parents peace of mind and ensure that they begin their parenting journey with knowledge about road safety and injury prevention.
We can’t stop accidents from happening on the road, but we can take steps to prevent serious injuries or even fatalities. A correctly installed car seat is a highly effective vaccine against automotive accident injuries. We sincerely hope that Upstate parents will take the time to protect our children.
William Bradshaw is president and owner of Bradshaw Automotive Group and a leading advocate of child passenger safety. William and his wife, Annette, are the namesakes for GHS’ Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health & Advocacy, which aims to improve the well-being of all children in S.C. through innovative education and prevention programs, clinical research and academic partnerships.