New hotline helps you rat out bad parents for not buckling children

You're stopped at a red light. You glance into the car ahead of you.

And see a little boy running around on the back seat.

"Why isn't that kid in a car seat?" you fume. "Don't they know he could get killed? Buckle that kid up!" And then the car drives off.

Now there is a way you can anonymously do something about it, without getting the driver in legal trouble.

Dial (888) 800-2642 to report the car to Be a Buckle Buddy.

It's a state-sponsored program that will track down the owner via the license plate number, and send them a warning and materials about child car safety.

The Geneva Police Department recently signed on.

"We're not about getting people to pay fines. We just want them to do what they should be doing to keep their kids safe," said officer Chuck Parisi, who will oversee Geneva's participation.

"The intent is not to be punitive in any manner," said Chris Franciskovich, regional communications manager for Children's Hospital of Illinois. The Peoria-based hospital, the Tazewell County Sheriff's Department and Peoria-Area Safe Kids Coalition started the program in 2004.

The Adams County Sheriff's Department joined in the spring of 2006, and in September 2006 Be a Buckle Buddy received state money to expand it to other sites. The program has a $99,738 IDOT grant this year.

Two that signed up are the Geneva and Wheaton police departments. Geneva will send the packets to any owners who live in Kane County; Wheaton will do so for DuPage County. Franciskovich supplies them with a form letter they can personalize and brochures about car seat safety. The departments can pay the postage or submit receipts for reimbursement.

Franciskovich pulls messages off the hotline once a week and faxes information -- ideally, the license plate, kind of vehicle, location of incident, date and time -- to the appropriate departments. If a caller gives just a plate number, he gives it to Tazewell, which covers for the entire state.

The police do not tell Franciskovich's hospital where any offenders live and since the call is routed through the hospital's switchboard, Franciskovich does not even see the area code from which the reporting person is calling.

The packet contains a brochure about car seat safety; another brochure, about car seat safety for children with special needs; and an IDOT brochure about Illinois' Child Passenger Protection Act.

Parisi recalled incidences of unrestrained children.

"What we will see is a small child standing up in the back seat, waving to us as we're driving by the car," he said. Or an adult sitting in the back seat holding an infant. Or a parent doesn't realize his crafty tot has sneaked out of the seat.

He pulled a woman over for having an unrestrained kid; she buckled the kid up and the 3-year-old promptly unbuckled himself right there in front of the officer. He had problems getting his own kids to stay buckled when they were young, he said.

"Really, what it comes down to is the children are going to follow what they see their parents doing," he said. If you wear a seat belt all the time, they'll believe doing so is important.

A Buckle Buddy warning could even let a parent know that a person using their car while taking care of their child isn't following the law, Parisi said.

The program has handed out 1,303 packets since it started. There is a hang-up rate of about 50 percent on the message line, Franciskovich said. He doesn't know if people changed their mind midcall, lost a connection, or couldn't see a license plate.

So far, only one person has called to complain about receiving the warning, Franciskovich said.

Packets are only sent once, even if another complaint comes in.

Why add agencies to the program, if Tazewell was willing to do it for the whole state?

The program doesn't want to overburden any one agency, Franciskovich said. And he said he believes people might not even open a letter from police in an area in which they've not driven.

Getting something in the mail from local law enforcement "holds a little bit more weight," Franciskovich said.

And, yes, Franciskovich, a trained child seat safety specialist, uses Buckle Buddy himself.

"I'm always looking out," he said.