Any techs ever been involved in a Police Check?

I'm talking about the non-voluntary kind - where people get pulled over.

I remember one long weekend last summer when the police had announced they were going to have a safety blitz. We were on the highway and pulled in for gas at a big rest stop where the police had setup a big mobile command for inspection. I saw a few officers hauling carseats to a dumpster. (Carseats were not the focus of the blitz, but were one of the things they were looking at. Speeding, licensing, DUI, vehicle safety etc. were among the other concerns.)

I'm just wondering if any "civilian" techs ever participate in these kinds of things. It must be a very difficult situation, since the people aren't there voluntarily. This was also kinda in the middle of nowhere, so I wondered what the families without proper restraints did - it's not like they could just run out to WalMart and get something appropriate.

Anyone have any stories to relate?

Yup, I've done quite a lot of them!

Basically if they need a new seat they either a) get a 14 day diversion, which means they have 14 days to get a new, safe, car seat and bring it to us or show proof of purchase. If they do, they can get the fine waivered ($150 per offence).

or

b)sometimes we have car seats available that people can buy on a rent to own scheme.

I quite like doing police check stops. Sure, you do get some hostile, arrogant people occasionally but for the most part people are pretty good!

I've never heard of this being done! How interesting! I think it would be great! How does one get involved with something like that?

Jen (aidensmom02) and I both participated in police safety check when we took our tech course.

Who participates varies depending on the district. When it's specifically a carseat safety check, in AB anyways, its is certified technicians who check the seats, and police officers that decide whether or not to ticket & how many things to ticket for.

In Red Deer the county sheriff's and SJA staff do the checks. In Edmonton the Capital Health techs work with the police. The procedure in Edmonton area is quite different from Red Deer - in Red Deer we removed seats that needed to have strap heights changed or major errors corrected, and then reinstalled them for the parents. We also advised the parents of the errors ourselves and then the officer just issued the ticket.

In Edmonton, to this date, they've never had a volunteer tech participate in a safety check. They don't remove seats unless absolutely necessary - parents are instructed to change strap height when they get home... so basically it's a case of the tech evaluating the seat install & use, then privately talking to the police officer about what errors there are and making a recommendation. Then the police officer resumes contact with the parent and issues a ticket or warning depending. If a seatbelt needs to be tightened or something that can be done without removing the seat it's done, but in general kids aren't removed from their seats at roadside checks in the city.

In Red Deer I know there was a case of them holding a parent and child at a check point until someone was able to bring them an appropriate carseat. The parent and child were only a couple miles away from home too apparently...

I think if there was a seat that was obviously catastrophically unsafe they'd do the same thing here, but I have no experience aside from my discussion with the injury prevention coordinator and local instructor who works with the seat checks.

I can tell you that at roadside checks they don't have scales. In Red Deer they just took the parents word on weight, in Edmonton if the child obviously looks a different weight, they will issue a ticket and tell the parent to get the child weighed at a health unit and provide proof to the court and the ticket will be dropped. They're able to better judge weight though since the techs are also all health nurses and weigh kids on a daily basis, so in many cases it's obvious if a parent says they're 15lb kid is 22lbs or they're 30lb kid is 40lbs...

Sorry this reply got rather lengthy. I think how safety checks are done and how often they're done vary from province to province. AB has really stepped up enforcement, and in the capital health region it is going to increase even further over the next while. Red Deer is in the process of having all their sheriff's and peace officers certified, so that anyone who is pulled over for a traffic stop will also have their seats checked if they have kids with them and they'll get a ticket for that in addition to whatever else...

Hope that helps some.