Properly installed safety seats protect your most precious cargo

Three handy, able-bodied men — Marty Mlynarski, his son-in-law and another relative — sweated over installing the child safety seat he'd bought for his granddaughter. But something just wasn't right.

“I could never get it tight enough,” Mlynarski of Elk Grove Village said. “And I'm in the trades. I'm mechanically inclined. So, I thought, ‘why rack my brain — when I could come here instead?'”

“Here” was the Hoffman Estates police station where it took about 10 minutes for Officer Adam Marak to whip the seat into submission.

“It shouldn't move more than an inch if it's installed correctly,” Marak said.

Mlynarski's story struck a nerve. My marriage nearly ended over trying to secure a tether on a child seat in a Honda Civic hatchback. Some parents install safety seats without turning a hair. And then, there's the rest of us.

Instructions on some models are written like civil engineering textbooks. If you don't buy the most expensive seat in the store, you feel like a bad parent. And adjusting straps with a squirming toddler requires Jedi-like skills.

If that describes you — help is out there. Today marks the start of Child Passenger Safety Week culminating with Seatcheck Saturday this weekend. Experts will inspect and install seats at locations throughout the suburbs, including the Illinois Tollway headquarters in Downers Grove.

Four children age 14 or younger die in vehicle crashes every day, according to 2008 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But child safety seats can cut the risk of fatalities by 71 percent in infants and 54 percent for toddlers.

“Car seats work so well that sometimes kids survive the crash when their parents don't,” said Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician and member of the Elk Grove Village-based American Academy of Pediatrics.

Hoffman's also a certified car seat technician who sympathizes with laymen. Installing safety seats “is very complicated — way more than it needs to be, especially for something as important as this,” he said.

About 80 percent of child safety seats are installed incorrectly, Illinois State Police estimate.

Among the common mistakes are using both the latch system and seat belts to secure a seat.

Other missteps include: seats that are too loose, tether straps used incorrectly and harnesses that aren't snug or at the proper level. Chest clips should be at armpit level, experts advise.

“Everything has to work together to be safe,” Marak said. “If there's one weak link, the seat won't do what it's supposed to be doing.”

And contrary to the hype, more expensive doesn't mean a seat is better.

“Every seat sold in the store meets all federal regulations,” explained Illinois State Trooper Michelle Kistulinec, District 15's safety education officer.

Hoffman added, “there's a lot of bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, I want parents to buy something that will work for them, that fits in the car and they'll use every single time.”

But if price doesn't matter, the age of the seat does. Before buying a seat at a garage sale or accepting a hand-me-down, check the date on the back, Kistulinec advised. Even if a secondhand seat isn't all that old, it could have been involved in a crash resulting in flaws not visible to the eye.

And, don't be embarrassed about asking for help, professionals say. Marak took a four-day course before he could be certified as a seat technician.

“If you're a first-time parent, I suggest you bring your seat in,” he said. “I'm happy to help protect someone's children and get it right.”

The tollway's child seat inspection event at 2700 Ogden Ave., Downers Grove, lasts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. For a list of other locations hosting events this weekend, visit buckleupillinois.org or seatcheck.net/seatcheck.html.

Here's some other useful websites.

Ÿ To find a free seat inspection station near you, check out nhtsa.gov/cps/cpsfitting/index.cfm.

Ÿ The American Academy of Pediatrics offers a parents' guide to car seats at aap.org/healthtopics/carseatsafety.cfm.

Ÿ And, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rates seats on how easy they are to use at nhtsa.gov/Safety/Ease-of-Use.

You should know

Here's what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for car seats.

Ÿ Keep children in rear-facing restraints until age 2 or until maximum weight and height restrictions are reached.

Ÿ In general, children 2 and older should ride in forward-facing safety seats until they reach weight and height limits.

Ÿ Older children should use a booster seat until they are 4 feet 9 inches tall and between ages 8 up to 12 years.

Ÿ Children who no longer need boosters should use lap and shoulder seat belts.

Ÿ Kids younger than 13 should ride in the back seat.

Experts recommend parents downplay the transition to new seats and not treat it as a promotion.

“You lose safety along the way,” said Hoffman, a pediatrician at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Oregon. “Parents want to delay those progressions as long as they can.”

Some moms and dads may scoff at the idea of keeping a rambunctious child in a booster seat. But, “who's in charge?” asked Hoffman. “How willing are you to sacrifice a child's safety?”

One more thing

As first reported in this column, Metra consultant Avery Grimes' contract is nearly up. The railroad expert comes highly qualified and highly paid at $225,000 for half a year. New Metra CEO Alex Clifford said Grimes' expertise is crucial as he learns the ropes and he hopes to snag him for another six months. But will board members agree given pending fare hikes? That's probably why officials last week pushed the decision off to October.

Your voice

Palatine's Bob Emerson weighed in on the Illinois Tollway's rate increase saying, “I would not have a problem with it as long as the increase goes into a special account just for the road work and not to pay for salary increases, etc. I think that a special watchdog group should be formed to report (annually) the amount collected and payments for road repairs.”

Regarding tollway employees getting a break on tolls to and from work, “I think that tollway workers should have to pay (for tolls) like the rest of us. Besides how do we know that they use the pass for personal usage? I know they are not supposed to, but let's face it, it could happen,” he wrote.

Upcoming

Thursday is Chicagoland Car-Free Day. That means biking, walking or taking public transit to work. For ideas and resources, visit chicagolandcarfree.org. Will I make my annual, three-hour trek from Downers Grove to Arlington Heights? Wait and see.

Gridlock alert

It's bad out there. Particularly in DuPage County.

Route 53 commuters will lose their road for 10 days starting Thursday at Metra's Milwaukee West Line, north of Irving Park Road. Detours will be posted. The work is part of IDOT's Route 53 widening between Army Trail Road and the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway.

And you can say pfutt to traveling on Pfingsten Road, north of Lake Cook Road in Deerfield, as of today. County County is creating a T-intersection there and closures stretch from Lake-Cook Road to Estate Drive.

Time to hug a trucker

There's a lot more to those 18-wheelers than meets the eye, says the Illinois Trucking Association. Did you know the state's trucking industry employs 330,000 people? The average annual salary in the Illinois trucking industry is $50,000. Nationwide, trucks moved 8.8 billion tons of freight in 2009, or 68 percent of total U.S. freight. Trucks deliver more than 74 percent of Illinois' manufactured freight, according to the ITA, which just celebrated National Truck Driver Appreciation Week.