Vent daycare field trip

amelia222

New member
Not for my dd, but the older kids at her daycare. They were planning to go to the pumpkin patch today until the fun police came along, aka me. Luckily we slept in and my dd got to daycare late, just as they were loading up the vans with 3-5 year olds....can you see where this is going?

The daycare has a bunch of backless boosters for before/after school pickup. And they got some of the little kids to bring their harness seats. There were 10-12 kids going, 4 of which were harnessed. I saw some kids in backless boosters that had to be under 30lb.

So I asked if they needed any help, I am a car seat tech, check to make sure kids are travelling safely, blah, blah. They said sure so the first thing i did was check if the belts had been locked for the harnessed seats. Turns out the vans are just old enough that they will need locking clips, which they don't have. I told them that they could not legally, safely, take these kids on the field trip. They either need proper restraints or a school bus.

I do feel bad for the kids that were so excited to go, but I'd rather them be upset than unsafe. When I left they were still deciding whether to just take a few booster kids or cancel the trip for everyone.

I had to bite my tongue a few times so they would listen to me at all. Poorly fitting backless boosters for teeny 4 year olds with no headrest behind didn't seem to be an issue for them :(
 
ADS

MomToEliEm

Moderator
Do you think they will buy new seats or get locking clips so they can continue to take field trips or will they forgo the trips for that age group?

At our old daycare, they used to take a lot of field trips in the 15-passenger vans. Once the Texas law was put in place, they decided to just cancel the field trips for the 4-5 year old group as it was too hard to deal with all the carseats. Prior to the law, they just let all the 4-5 year olds ride in the regular seatbelts and they didn't seem to think it was an issue.
 

amelia222

New member
I finally got a chance to talk with the daycare owner today. She thanked me for stopping the trip, even though some parents were upset about it. They would have been far more than a little upset if their kids were in an accident like that. She did say that was the first time they had tried to take the younger kids anywhere and she will talk to me about a safe way to transport the kids before any future trips. Also, she asked for advice about which seats to use for the kindergarten kids they pick up from school. :thumbsup:

ETA: The vans don't have tether anchors either, and I doubt she will want to pay for them. So most likely no trips for kids too little for boosters.
 

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