Using car seats and safety restraints is a simple way to protect your small children from potential dangers on the road.
While car seat safety laws vary from state to state, the general consensus is that depending on age and weight, most children will have to remain in some sort of safety seat until the age of eight. Installing a child’s safety seat in your vehicle might seem like a pretty easy task, but you’d be surprised to learn just how often misuse and incorrect installation occur.
An average of 96 percent of parents believe that their kids’ safety seats are properly installed, but the amount of child restraints misused nationally ranges from 72 to 84 percent. Incorrectly using a safety seat or booster seat can make your son or daughter three and half times more likely to be seriously injured in the event of a crash.
To raise awareness of proper safety seat installation, one mom took to social media to prove a point in an unusual way. And let’s just say people aren’t too thrilled about it.
Mother Rachel McNamara appears to be dangling her infant in mid air with only the car seat as protection.
McNamara’s actions quickly sparked a debate in the comment section as total strangers both praised and ridiculed the mom’s behavior. Her post has been shared 49,000 times and shows no sign of stopping.
And as crazy as the photo may seem, McNamara’s reasoning for posting the bizarre picture comes from a place of care and concern. The mother posted it to encourage car safety for small children and as a way to make parents think a little harder about seat installation.
In her post McNamara writes, “After strapping your child into their car seat, ask yourself if you’d be comfortable flipping it upside down. Remember that the chest clip should be at armpit level and the straps should be tight enough to pass the pinch test.”
She goes on to state, “I’d like to clarify that I’m not advocating that parents should be flipping their kids upside down before every car ride. Just that they should feel confident that their child would be safe if the car seat was flipped over in an accident. I think this is a great visual and shows just how important proper car seat use is.”
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After her justification, McNamara goes in to explain even more car safety details including the “pinch test,” shoulder strap placement, and the benefits of using a rear-facing car seat for as long as possible. You can read McNamara’s full car seat safety explanation here.
