Meg
Well-known member
(I hope this is the correct folder for this.)
I was excited to go to my first car seat check this morning, but it ended up being anything other than helpful. My reason for going to the check was due to my Radian having a tilt, so I wanted to address that and make sure it was OK.
Police officers ran the check and were very nice, but the officer that helped me gave me some bad info. I got a lot of comments about how there weren't any mistakes with anything, so that made me feel good. The officer was joking around telling me to stick around to help install seats with them.
They also had never seen a Radian before and were marveling at the weight of the thing.
The issues.. the officer asked me the age of my oldest and when I told him 3.5 years old, he told me I'm going to want to think about switching him to a booster. Um, he's 34 lbs, 37 in, and has the maturity level of a puppy. I told him that and he backtracked a bit. He also asked the size of my youngest and when I told him 6 months and 20 lbs, he said I'm going to want to FF him in the next few months. I told him I keep the kids RF until 3 y/o and you would have thought I told him I make my kids ride in the trunk. But then he told me "oh yeah, they just changed the recommendation." He removed the seats, wrote down the info, and then re-installed them himself. The way he kept asking me if I was a tech, it seemed like he thought I was testing him or something. Do they really never see a correctly installed/used seat?!
I left there a bit bummed that they were telling people the extreme bare minumums for car seat safety, although, I was happy that most people were leaving there safer.. new seats, tights installs, etc. But then I got home and went to remove my youngest from his seat and the whole thing shifted! I checked the seat at the belt path and that's when I noticed the officer never locked the shoulder belt! I was driving home on the highway going 65mph! I'm upset with myself for not checking before we left the car seat check, but I assumed it was done correctly. I can't believe we drove that long and that fast with an incorrectly/loosely installed seat. And of course, we never got the tilt issues resolved or addressed.
I'm pretty disappointed- I went there for help and left with my baby in an unsafe situation.
I was excited to go to my first car seat check this morning, but it ended up being anything other than helpful. My reason for going to the check was due to my Radian having a tilt, so I wanted to address that and make sure it was OK.
Police officers ran the check and were very nice, but the officer that helped me gave me some bad info. I got a lot of comments about how there weren't any mistakes with anything, so that made me feel good. The officer was joking around telling me to stick around to help install seats with them.
They also had never seen a Radian before and were marveling at the weight of the thing.The issues.. the officer asked me the age of my oldest and when I told him 3.5 years old, he told me I'm going to want to think about switching him to a booster. Um, he's 34 lbs, 37 in, and has the maturity level of a puppy. I told him that and he backtracked a bit. He also asked the size of my youngest and when I told him 6 months and 20 lbs, he said I'm going to want to FF him in the next few months. I told him I keep the kids RF until 3 y/o and you would have thought I told him I make my kids ride in the trunk. But then he told me "oh yeah, they just changed the recommendation." He removed the seats, wrote down the info, and then re-installed them himself. The way he kept asking me if I was a tech, it seemed like he thought I was testing him or something. Do they really never see a correctly installed/used seat?!
I left there a bit bummed that they were telling people the extreme bare minumums for car seat safety, although, I was happy that most people were leaving there safer.. new seats, tights installs, etc. But then I got home and went to remove my youngest from his seat and the whole thing shifted! I checked the seat at the belt path and that's when I noticed the officer never locked the shoulder belt!
I was driving home on the highway going 65mph! I'm upset with myself for not checking before we left the car seat check, but I assumed it was done correctly. I can't believe we drove that long and that fast with an incorrectly/loosely installed seat. And of course, we never got the tilt issues resolved or addressed.I'm pretty disappointed- I went there for help and left with my baby in an unsafe situation.
