Adventures in Car Seat Safety

Wiggles

New member
So I had two 'adventures' while I was away over the past few weeks.

One was simple. I climbed into the car for a family friend to drive me somewhere. I noticed that his daughter's high back booster (which she sat in very nicely and was really good about making sure everything was in place on!) was on its lowest head rest setting. I *think* it was a high back turboboost, but I didn't get a good look at the labels. Her shoulders were crunched into the headrest and her head was above the headrest. I turned to her dad and said "You know, she'd be more comfortable if the headrest was up higher." He looked at me like I was nuts and said that he didn't think it went up. I reached over and put it up to the correct height and she was able to sit up straight. He was like "Wow!" It was such an easy fix. So she's much safer without her head bobbling about above the backrest and more comfortable.

The second... oh the second. My family was looking after a pair of little girls. The younger one, at three, is in a forward facing seat that converts to a booster. My mum had to go without me to pick her up. The little one is still harnessed. My mum didn't bother even to TRY to install the carseat. She harnessed the little girl in, then picked up the carseat, with the girl in it, and strapped the seatbelt approximately into the booster path, clipped the tether strap on, then drove off. As if this wasn't bad enough, my mother then took the girl on another car ride to go grocery shopping. In the same configuration!

I found out about this after the second car ride and told my mum off while I installed the carseat correctly (it was a really easy install, too. Can't remember what seat, but it installed without even a fraction of an inch of movement at the beltpath with virtually no effort--two minutes at MOST to get it tightened and everything). My mother's comment? "I don't care if it's in correctly or not. It doesn't matter. I knew you'd fix it eventually."

The little one rode safely for the rest of the time we had her--I made sure of that by not letting mum drive her around--but I'm still LIVID with my mother's attitude. If she couldn't sort out how to install the carseat (can't see how she wouldn't be able to, to be honest) and she HAD to transport the little one the way she did, why did she not IMMEDIATELY come to me to have me fix it when they got in? Grrr. I suppose I should have been more pro-active--she was picking up the girls from their mum and I assumed their mother would check my mother's carseat install before letting them drive off.

So yes, those are my adventures in carseat safety.
 
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