Rob Garrett - Blogs

Welcome to Rob Garrett - Blogs Sign in | Join | Help
in Search
Google

Garretts' World

Happenings in the world of the Garretts'

Child car seats

I like to think myself as an intelligent being, and a handy one at that, which is why I chose to install the child safety seats in my car. Today, the dealer, where my wife purchased her car, were doing a free certification check for child safety seats, so I went along with two seats and my car.  I was surprised to find out:

a) One of the seats, which I had not installed, was broken (missing screw on one of the buckle attachments).
b) The harness on the other installed seat was threaded incorrectly.
c) The installed seat was not jammed in tight enough.

I am so glad that I went and got these seats checked out. In the event of a car accident my children could have been at serious risk - not quite as bad as if they were in no seat at all, but not as safe as they should be.
Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit!
Published Thursday, June 16, 2005 5:08 PM by Rob Garrett

Comment Notification

If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here

Subscribe to this post's comments using RSS

Comments

 

Nathan said:

I have a feeling that any seat relying on belts is physically impossible for mere mortals to tighten down sufficiently. Our current one isn't nearly as snug as I would like, but being the best I can do it's what we have. I've heard stories of fire departments taking pool noodles and stuffing them in to finish off the job. Which all makes me very happy that our infant seat at least clipped right into the car for foolproof installation. It would be nice if more of them did that...
June 17, 2005 8:16 AM
 

Rob Garrett said:

When they fitted one of the seats to my car one person put their full body weight in the seat while the other pulled in the belts. I was told that the seat should not move any more than 1 inch in any direction.

The Fitzgerald Dealer on Nicholson Lane/Rockville Pike runs these safety checks once a month. It's worthwhile to drive down on the day. I'll dig out the number to call to find out when the next one is. They also take appointments if you need your seat checked at any other time. Best part - it's all free.

Sounds like you have the latch system in your car. Unfortunately my car does not, but I found out what I had been doing wrong with the belts. Apparently I have a child locking system on the belts, which is only enabled when the belt is extended fully before retracting it.
June 17, 2005 9:57 AM
 

Steve - known as little bro said:

How do your child seats work then????

Ours are simple you put it in, the lap part of the seat belr runs round the back of the car seat and is clipped in, then the shoulder part of the belt comes over thr front and clips in maing sure the seat is secure
June 28, 2005 8:35 AM

Leave a Comment

(required) 
(optional)
(required) 
Submit

Blurb


Head Shot
Rob Garrett is a British Expat living in Maryland USA. Rob is a trained software engineer and experienced in Windows .NET development.

Rob enjoys listening to Rock music, posting to blogs, driving in the country with the sunroof open, beer (not in conjunction with country driving) and spending time with his family.

This Blog

Syndication

Powered by Community Server, by Telligent Systems