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Children Safety in Cars - As the parent, you should never stop wanting what’s best for your children or be concerned for their safety. While there is no shortage of dangers for children, by far the most dangerous situation your family is likely to be in, is while you are driving.

While day-to-day driving may not seem very dangerous, the sheer number of trips and drivers on the roads results in a shockingly high number of injuries and deaths each year.

To help make keeping children safe on and around the roads easier to manage we are sharing a list of tips, online tools, and mobile apps gathered from the Car Safety Tools & Apps Guide on coverage.com. This article and the information on the Car Safety Guide will help stay prepared for possible emergency situations and can be very helpful in safeguarding your family, your livelihood, and avoiding mistakes should an accident take place.

The Best Way To Keep Your Family Safe On The Road Is To Drive Defensively and make sure everyone is wearing a safety belt.

Let’s look at some figures for car crashes in America for just how dangerous driving can be:

• 1.3 million people die from car accidents each year. On average that means 3,287 deaths every day. (SaferAmerica)
• During 2017, about 35% of U.S. passengers at, or under the age of 12 years old died in car crashes with no seatbelt. Parents this is why you don’t leave children in vehicles without a seatbelt for any reason. In addition, more than 116,000 children were also injured in crashes. (NHTSA)
• In 2018 more than 50 million injuries across the world were caused by traffic. (WHO)
• Injuries from vehicles are a leading cause of death for children in America, many of these deaths were preventable. (The England Journal of Medicine)
• Heatstroke is a major cause of non-crash-related deaths for children in the United States. (NHTSA)


• Children at the age of five and younger are most vulnerable to accidents that result in injuries and death. (KidsAndCars.org)

Car Safety Concerns Are Different For Children

Small children are not as resilient in car accidents and many of the safety features in today's cars are disabled or less effective for small children. Children’s shorter height and lower weight can make them susceptible to car crashes. This is true to the degree to where young children are vulnerable to dangers that don’t apply to adults. For example, poorly designed car seats, hot cars, seat belts that are made to protect adults do not fit as well on children, and airbags are shut off automatically if there is not enough weight on the seat, as airbags deployed too high on the body can be more harmful than the crash itself. However, airbags are one of the most effective safety devices in severe crashes and that extra measure of safety will not be available for smaller children.

Car Seats Are Essential In Protecting Young Children

Correctly Selected For Your Child’s Weight Are The First Line Of Defense

The accident statistics from 2017, in particular, are shocking:

• 37% of children who died in a crash, had not been in a car seat or wearing a safety belt, meaning those deaths could have likely been avoided.

However, since the early 2000s better car seat designs and more compliance from parents are now having a positive effect:

Child fatalities from car crashes have been down, due to in-part improved child safety and car seats. In fact, the NHTSA has stated “Child safety seats have been shown to reduce fatal injury by 71 percent for infants (under one-year-old) and by 54 percent for toddlers (1 to 4 years old) in passenger cars”

These figures and statistics are clear: it’s vital that you get a good car seat for children to protect your child’s future.

Choosing The Correct Car Seat And Updating As Your Child Grows

An important point about car seats is only a seat designed for the correct weight and size of your child should be used. Different seats will safely protect only children of a certain size. As children grow, parents will need to replace car seats to maintain the correct design for their size, failing to do so will negate the safety of the car seat.

To help in selecting a quality car seat, the NHTSA has a car seat search and comparison tool to assist in finding the right car seat for your child.

Children In Hot Cars Is Serious Danger

2018 was a bad year for vehicular heat strokes especially for children, Since 1998, 875 children lost their lives from heatstroke while abandoned in a vehicle with more deaths happening while the parent is at work.

Keeping vehicles locked, even when not occupied is important too, as not all children were left forgotten in hot cars by busy parents. approximately 25% of the tragic hot-car deaths were from children who entered vehicles on their own but were unable to come out.

What makes this even more tragic is that these kinds of deaths are easily prevented, however, it’s easy for children to slip away from adults with busy work schedules and get into deadly trouble.

A Simple Tip To Keep From Forgetting About Quiet Children In The Back Seat

In order to prevent such sad events, the National Safety Council says that keeping to a safe routine and placing essential daily items such as your wallet, phone, or purse in the back seat so that forces the parent to check the back seat before leaving the vehicle. Good education and training can prevent bad events like this from occurring, to help bring awareness and reinforce good habits, the National Safety Council offers a free hot-car training course.

Finally. keeping the vehicle locked against unintended access especially by children is a good precaution.

Be Prepared For Other Roadside Emergencies

Emergency preparedness is another often overlooked way parents can protect the safety of their family. A lot can happen on the road that can turn a small event like a fender-bender or mechanical break-down into a far more dangerous situation. Parents should outfit their vehicles with tools and resources to be prepared ahead of time for many types of emergencies including:

- Getting a flat tire at night
- Breaking down far from home
- Becoming stranded by bad weather
- Having a dead battery
- Striking a large animal
- Ending up in a canal or flooded ditch
- Become lost in an unfamiliar area
- Getting stranded unprepared for extreme weather
- Being assaulted
- Many more

Having an emergency kit, that includes jumper cables or battery boosters, flat tire repair, emergency road cones, coolant, flashlights, and other simple supplies can make a big difference when you need them. Simply having a charged cell-phone will be one of the best tools for getting aid.

Below is a list of tools and items parents should have as part of their roadside emergency kits:

Roadside Emergency Essential Equipment

It’s impossible to know what can happen on the road, with the stakes being very high especially when driving with children. In the event, you are stranded there are several items we recommend you have stored in your vehicles that can make a huge difference in keeping everyone safe.

Basic Emergency Tools

Cutter and Hammer, for breaking out
In the event you are trapped it’s crucial to have a hammer and cutter to break out, having them on hand is extremely useful in this situation.

Backup up battery and phone
Help is a phone call away for those with the battery to support, ensuring you have the battery at all times no matter what is essential. So carry one, just in case.

Written emergency Numbers
For those without a phone, having emergency info always written down can be useful to quickly meet the information this is useful in order to prevent memorizing as you often cannot rely on your memory.

State Map
Digital Maps are powered by electricity so when there’s an outage you will need one to find your way.

Pen and Paper
It’s important to know when jotting down things, for it’s important to know whenever a license plate or insurance info is needed. Keeping it handy in those cases where your phone cannot be accessed is very useful.

Jumper cables
There are portable options such as lithium-ion batteries with jumper cables, but in emergency cases, this is absolutely essential.

Basic Travel Kit Tool
Self-Contained kits are a perfect addition for those quick fixes like skew drivers, adjustable pliers, and other common tools

Auto Maintenance Fluids
Some times cars can be low on washer fluid so it’s important to have the needed things to repair certain crucial systems

- Gallon of Coolant
- Quart of motor oil
- Tiring Fixing Kit/ Inflation device
- Washing fluid
- Ice Scrapers

This is very important to keep in mind especially if you traveled to an area with a colder climate where the harsh winters cover windshields with snow and ice.

Additional Important Supplies that Parents will Need
These things are useful to average drivers but for parents of small children, more precautions will be needed in case of emergencies.

Emergency Info Card

In cases where children are separated from you, it’s necessary to keep the information on hand which includes vital info like medications and allergies.

First-aid kit

For all injuries big and small, it's can be very helpful to have a first aid kit in your vehicle

Blankets

In case of being stranded in the cold having this on hand can keep you and your child warm. Floridians hardly ever need to worry about extreme cold, however, we do get the occasional cold-snap. Other Floridians may be visiting parts of the country that do become very cold and need to be prepared for the cold in case their vehicle is disabled.

FlashLight and Batteries

Having this on hand can be a gigantic help if you lose something and need to be able to see, having a flashlight with charged batters should be considered essential.

Wet Wipes and Paper Towels

For cleaning messes or making car repairs, wet wipes and paper towels are especially useful if anyone gets car-sick.

Non-Perishable Snacks

Carrying around snacks that never spoil, such as protein bars or energy bars can keep your hunger satisfied and your children calm while waiting for help if you’ve been stranded

Bottled Water

Considered a basic necessity needed to survive it’s especially important in Florida's hot climate to keep these on hand in case you’re stuck without one.

Pepper Spray

Having a way to safely and easily defend your family from dangerous animals or aggressive people while you're on long trips can be especially important for peace of mind, and it is far safer than other self-defense items.

Water-Resistance and walking shoes

In the event you leave your vehicle due to bad weather or flooding, having water-resistant shows can protect your feet from contaminated flood water should you need to travel on foot to safety. SW Florida has more than it's share of waterways, canals, drainage ditches, and flood-Zones that can be a problem in a crash or breakdown

Hand Warmers

Having hand warmers in case of being stranded can be very useful for keeping extremities from getting too cold, especially if you are traveling up north.

Car Safety Tools & Apps For Parents

The more you think of all of the potential dangers and mishaps that can occur while driving with your family the more you realize just how important to be prepared. However with so many possibilities of problems it can be hard for busy working parents to know where to begin. We recommend reviewing the list of apps and tools available in the Car Safety Guide by the folks at coverage.com

For the complete list of online tools and car safety apps for parents and families visit this excellent guide at Coverage.com.

Final Thoughts On Child Car Safety

Doing your part as a responsible parent is to expect the unexpected, this is also true in all parts of life. This rings true especially if you are on the road in a vehicle. A large amount of time spent on the roads and highways exposes you and your family to many potential dangers on a regular basis. Taking precautions is essential to protecting you and loved ones especially the most vulnerable of us from danger. Advancements made during the digital age have made it much easier to keep our safety and we encourage parents to take full advantage of the available resources to help protect their families.

Legal Protection For Your Family

Should the unthinkable happen, and you or a family member is injured in an auto accident contact the experienced injury lawyers at All Injuries Law Firm and take the first step in recovering from your crash.