PSA: How to properly use a seatbelt to lock a carseat

[MotionMan]

We did not have the LATCH system in our cars until after our second child was born. When I used it for the first time, I cried at all the wasted time messing with seat belts and the locking crap.

You can also put your knee into the car seat to get some weight on it to make it tighter when you are feeding it in. Car seats are supposed to not sway more than an inch in each direction. The seats I install rarely budge at all.

I use to use the knee method. Being a man of ample size, our carseats had no sway whatsoever.



MotionMan

 

[MotionMan]

In Colorado, they encourage you to have the seat installation verified by a LEO.

Every so often, on of the local hospitals sponsored a seat checking event where the Sheriff's Deputies and Junior Deputies (teenagers) would check seats for free.

My wife made me take one of our cars to get checked out. While waiting I saw that some woman came in with the seat strapped in with all three rear seat belts criss-crossed in such a crazy manner that the 2 inspecting Deputies busted up, called over the other Deputies and took pictures. They were in tears.

(Sadly, my father-in-law started to do something similar once before I stopped him and showed him the proper installation technique. When we realized how poorly the grandparents installed carseats, we would just trade cars with them whenever they took a kid.)

Another car came in with what at first looked like a 2-piece booster seat that turned out to be an infant carseat that had been cracked in half in a car accident TWO KIDS ago (i.e this was kid No. 3. The kid in the accident had survived, BTW). The Deputies confiscated (threw out) the seat and gave the woman a new one.

MotionMan

 

[DrPizza]

I was planning on taking my kids on a trip this weekend & figured I'd just take the rear seats out of the Grand Caravan to give them more space to play while I was driving.

 

[MotionMan]

I was planning on taking my kids on a trip this weekend & figured I'd just take the rear seats out of the Grand Caravan to give them more space to play while I was driving.

We use to ride around in the back of the station wagon like that.



MotionMan

 

[etrigan420]

We use to ride around in the back of the station wagon like that.



MotionMan

Oh hell yeah.

When I was a kid, I used to ride *standing up* in the passenger seat of my dad's 19 and 70 AMC Javelin.

When I was a little older me and my two brothers used to wrestle in the back of our conversion van that had nothing but 2 captain's chairs in front and shag carpet all the way back.

Supposedly when I was 3 I fell out of the back of my aunts station wagon when she was tooling around a mall parking lot.

I'm no worse for wear...*twitch*

 

[JTsyo]

Every so often, on of the local hospitals sponsored a seat checking event where the Sheriff's Deputies and Junior Deputies (teenagers) would check seats for free.

My wife made me take one of our cars to get checked out. While waiting I saw that some woman came in with the seat strapped in with all three rear seat belts criss-crossed in such a crazy manner that the 2 inspecting Deputies busted up, called over the other Deputies and took pictures. They were in tears.

(Sadly, my father-in-law started to do something similar once before I stopped him and showed him the proper installation technique. When we realized how poorly the grandparents installed carseats, we would just trade cars with them whenever they took a kid.)

Another car came in with what at first looked like a 2-piece booster seat that turned out to be an infant carseat that had been cracked in half in a car accident TWO KIDS ago (i.e this was kid No. 3. The kid in the accident had survived, BTW). The Deputies confiscated (threw out) the seat and gave the woman a new one.

MotionMan

Yea, after seeing how my parents bucked in my son. I make it a point to do it myself. When we were kids we never used car seats. They have have almost no experience with them. With my son if you leave any wiggle room, he'll get out of the shoulder straps.

 

[highland145]

I was planning on taking my kids on a trip this weekend & figured I'd just take the rear seats out of the Grand Caravan to give them more space to play while I was driving.

Talking about your son and his s.o.? Kinky, Doc.

 

[Cheesemoo]

In Colorado, they encourage you to have the seat installation verified by a LEO.

You mean that guy from TechTV?