Buckle Up the Right Way

One of the best things you can do to protect your children is make sure they are properly buckled up in the car.  Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that child safety seats reduce the risk of death in car crashes by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers age one to four and that booster seats reduce risk of injury by 59% for children age four to seven (compared to seat belts alone). 

There are many resources available to help parents make sure their children are safely secured and protected in the car.

5 Tips and Resources for Car Seat & Booster Seat Safety

• Safety Tip #1: Choose a car seat that fits in your vehicle: Not all child safety seats fit in all vehicles.  Nissan evaluated hundreds of car seats and created the Snug Kids™ Child Safety Seat Fit Guide to help you choose a car seat that fits your vehicle.  Watch this video to learn more about Snug Kids™.
  
  
• Safety Tip #2: Use the right type of child safety seat for your child's age and weight:  New recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics encourage parents to keep babies in a rear-facing car seat (the safest option) until they are two-years-old.  The Center for Disease Control and Prevention advises that children should be secured in a forward-facing car seat until age four and 40 pounds.  After that, they should be in a booster seat until age eight or 4'9" tall, or until they are big enough to have the seat belt fit properly.  Nissan has a Quick Reference Child Safety Card with helpful graphics.
  
  
• Safety Tip #3: Make sure your child safety seat is installed and positioned properly:  Use the guidelines provided by Safe Kids USA to make sure your car seat and booster seat are properly configured and to help you determine when you child is ready to move from a car seat to a booster seat to a seat belt.
  
  
• Safety Tip #4: Get your car seat inspected:  Most police departments will inspect your car seat for safety and teach you how to properly install it for free.  Get a list of local inspection states in your area from the National Highway Traffic Safety Assocation.
  
  
• Safety Tip #5: Make sure children under age 13 sit in the back:  The back seat is always the safest place for a child.  Both Safe Kids USA and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention advise that children under the age of 13 should not be allowed to sit in the front.  A deployed airbag could severly injure smaller children in a crash.