Child Auto Safety Tips You May Not Know

Child safety week is September 19-25.  Forbes.com has offered up some tips for parents on auto safety they may not have otherwise known. Here are some of the key points:

• Face babies backward in their car seats. And keep them that way for as long as possible up to the height or weight limit of the particular seat. At a minimum, keep infants rear-facing until the age of 1 and until they weigh at least 20 pounds.
• Keep toddlers in forward-facing car seats until they reach the upper weight or height limit of the particular car-seat (usually around age 4 and 40 pounds).
• Keep young children in booster seats--in the back seat--until they are as old as 8 years or at least 4'9'' tall. One way to tell if they're positioned correctly in the booster is to look at the seat belt: It should fit with the lap belt laying across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt fitting easily across the chest.
• When pregnant, wear the seat belt low across the belly, with the center portion placed firmly along the breastbone. Contrary to some myths, it's always safer to wear a seat-belt, even when eight or nine months pregnant, than to not wear one for fear of crushing the unborn child in the event of a crash.
• Always walk around the car to check behind it before putting it in reverse. Teach children to stay away from cars when in the driveway. Most importantly, do not rely solely on backup cameras or radars in the car--sometimes the sensor cannot detect a small child or beloved toy that might attract a child to run in front of the backing vehicle.
• Watch your windows. According to NHTSA, many kids are injured when a window closes on their finger, wrist or hand, and some kids have even been strangled by power windows. To prevent this, activate the power-window lock so that they cannot play with the windows, and never leave the key in the ignition or in the "on" or "accessory" position when leaving the car.

For more safety tips, revisit our post on car seat safety from a few months ago.