Children and Car Safety With Buckle Up for Life

A new program, Buckle Up for Life, is working to educate parents about car safety. Funded in part by automaker Toyota, Buckle Up is working with communities nationwide to get parents to correctly restrain their children in car seats according to safety and manufacturing standards. The program runs six weeks, and covers car seat and booster seat placement, safety and injury concerns. The Buckle Up program also distributes car seats to attendees, and experts demonstrate the correct way to install car seats and booster seats with child safety restraints and seatbelts.

According to researchers at the University Of Michigan, in a report published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, it is 10 times more likely that Hispanic and African-American children in the U.S. are not restrained in moving car, either in a car seat or booster seat, compared to the rate of Caucasian children. For older children, the rate of older minority children who are unrestrained is two times higher than for Caucasian children. Buckle Up for Life is attempting to address this wide disparity with public awareness.

So far, as many as 45,000 people have taken advantage of Buckle Up for Life; Toyota Motor North America has reported more the distribution of more than 20,000 child car seats through the program.

Posted on Friday, December 28th, 2012 and filed under Consumer Protection.