In North Carolina, all children under five (5) and under 40 pounds must use an approved child restraint system. Note that children over 40 pounds are exempt, even if they are under five. New seats are being manufactured that will hold children up to as much as 80 pounds with a harness. We recommend that children stay in a child seat or booster seat until they are about 80 pounds because a regular seat belt system is not designed for such young children.

Yes. The Federal Aviation Administration strongly recommends, but does not require, using safety seats on airplanes. Babies and children are much better protected during turbulence and in emergency landings when they use a safety seat. SafetyBeItSafe U.S.A. has petitioned the FAA to require all passengers to be buckled up, including children under two, who currently are exempt. The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security has recommended that all children be properly restrained.

There is some controversy about the "expiration" date for safety seats. All experts agree that a seat should be discarded and destroyed if it is more than 10 years old, even if it looks fine. Most manufacturers suggest replacing a seat 5 to 8 years after the date of manufacture, because current safety seats may have better safety features than older seats, such as a tether or air bag warnings.

It is not illegal under NYS law for a child passenger to ride in the front seat of a vehicle that has a passenger air bag, but it is dangerous. Recent studies show that air bags can cause serious or fatal injuries to infants, children or small adults that sit in the passenger-side front seat. It is also normally safer for a child of any age to ride in the back seat of any vehicle.

The "best" safety seat is the one that fits your child, fits your car, and fits your family's needs in terms of comfort and convenience, so that you'll use it on every single ride. For more information about selecting a safety seat to fit your child, see "Best Child Safety Seat."

Generally, the recommendation is to replace all safety seats in use in a crash. It is almost impossible to tell if there is internal weakening of the plastic, and it would be very expensive to perform a thorough investigation of the safety seat to verify that it is safe to use. In California, state law requires that the responsible insurer replace safety seats that were in use at the time of the crash.

Unfortunately, there is no escape-proof safety seat. Children who learn how to get out of one kind of safety seat soon learn how to escape from others. However, most children quickly respond to parental firmness. This finding is based on a study conducted by SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A. with data collected from a range of English- and Spanish-speaking families.

NHTSA does not test these retrofit systems in its compliance testing program, so we have no policy on these systems. However, some child restraint manufacturers offer retrofit kits for lower LATCH attachments. If you choose to use a retrofit LATCH attachment kit, it is important to read the manufacturer's instructions to ensure that it can be used with your child seat model. Yes. The requirement only applies to child safety seats manufactured on or after September 1, 2002.

Never place an infant seat, especially a rear-facing infant seat, in the front seat of a vehicle equipped with a passenger-side Airbag. It is always best to place all child safety seats in the vehicle's rear seat. Only if a rear seat is unavailable and there is a manual cut-off switch for the passenger-side Airbag, may a forward-facing child seat be used with the passenger seat in its most rearward position.

Our drivers will upon request remove the existing seat to accommodate yours. We highly suggest, however, that you use our child safety seat. Why? Because we know everything about our child safety seats. We know that they fit in our vehicles, that they are safe, that they have not been recalled, or been in an accident, and our drivers are fully familiar with their operation.

Yes. The Federal Aviation Administration strongly recommends the use of a child safety seat, but does not require it. If you buy a ticket for your child, you have the right to use a safety seat. But if you don't buy a ticket, you may want to check with the airline about the use of a nearby empty seat. Check the labels on your car seat to make sure if it is certified for use in an aircraft. Make sure the base of your safety seat is no wider than 17 inches so that it fits into a coach-class seat.

To select the correct protection for your child, carefully read the recommendations of child safety seat or child restraint system manufacturers. The recommendations tell you what age weight and height a child can be to use the seat or system. The recommendations are normally printed on the outside of the package. Infant seats are normally for infants that weigh approximately 22 pounds or less, are 25 inches or less in length, or are less than one year old.

Install the safety seat so that it moves no more than an inch to the front or sideways in the vehicle (see Installation tightness). Straps should be threaded through the slots at or below the child's shoulders on a rear-facing safety seat and through the top strap slots in most forward-facing convertible seats. Straps should be at or above the child's shoulders in seats that only face forward, such as combination seats.

Yes. Any child safety seat, even one with LATCH, can be safely installed using a seat belt and, if available for use with a forward-facing child safety seat, a top tether anchor. Be sure to follow the vehicle owner's manual and child safety seat manufacturer's instructions for correct installation and proper use.

Most forward facing safety seats that have internal harnesses that are manufactured after September 1, 1999 will have the tether. The tether strap gives your child added head protection in a car crash. Desert Sammy Injury Prevention advocates all forward facing children to use a seat that is tethered.

No. The safety standard does not require that both systems be used together. Child restraints are tested to ensure compliance with Federal safety standards when (1) attached to a vehicle using the LATCH system, and (2) attached using the vehicle belt system without LATCH. The LATCH system was designed to make child safety seat installation easier, without using seat belts. Yes, as long as it does not interfere with a secure fit of the child safety seat and correct installation.

Clothing worn by children can present compression and harness routing problems. Bulky jackets and snowsuits can compress in a crash and leave the harness slack on a child, allowing excessive movement or even ejection. It is best to have children travel without coats, to put coats on backwards, or to add a blanket over the child after the harness has been buckled.

If the child is wearing a lap belt only, the belt may ride up on the child's abdomen, particularly if the child slides forward on the seat because his/her legs are not long enough to reach over the front of the seat. This can cause internal injuries in a crash (seat belt syndrome). The lap/shoulder belt may not fit the child properly, coming across the child's face and neck.

Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death for children from 4 to14 years old. Most of these injury crashes could have been prevented by the correct use of child safety seats and seat belts, yet many parents are not restraining their children properly. The Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department is not an official child safety seat inspection station, however there are two locations within a reasonable distance:

The first thing you need to do is read the instructions that came with the child safety seat as well as the owner's manual for your car; look in the index section under â??child restraintâ??. Your car may require special equipment from the dealer in order to install the seat properly. Different cars may pose different unique problems depending on the type of seat belts you have, contours, bumps etc.

The best place to find information about child car seats, including ease-of-use ratings, child height/weight requirements, and recall information, is on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website. Another useful resource is Safety Belt Safe USA. For a detailed description of the HealthyCar.org vehicle rating system and methodology, download the full report.

Everyone including parents, grandparents, relatives or friends, who drives with a child under the age of 8 who weighs less than 36 kg (80 lb.) and stands less than 145 cm (4 ft. 9 in.) tall is required to ensure the child is properly secured in the appropriate child safety seat or booster seat based on his/her height and weight. Research shows motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of injury and death for children and youth.

Children less than one year old or weighing less than 20 pounds must be properly restrained in a rear-facing child safety seat designed for infants. Children less than four years old but more than one, or weighing less than 40 pounds, but more than 20 pounds must be properly restrained in a forward-facing child safety seat. Children less than six years old but more than fours years old, or weighing less than 60 pounds but at least 40 pounds, must be properly restrained in a child booster seat.

If you have no shoulder belts in the back seat, use the lap belt for now. A lap belt at least keeps a passenger from being thrown out of the car in a crash, which increases the risk of death four times compared to staying in the car. If shoulder belts are available but the child is sitting in a center lap belt, move the child to the side. Use the lap AND shoulder belt with a belt-positioning booster until the child is big enough to fit well without a booster.

To fit most shoulder belts without a booster system, the child should be 1.45 m tall (4 ft. 9 in) tall or have a sitting height of 74 cm. (29 in.) Also, a child's pelvic bones are not fully developed until the age of 9 or 10 and the seat belt system may ride up over the abdomen. Click here for information on booster seats.

Yes. We don't offer our own child seats because people's needs for these vary so much, but you are very welcome to use your own.