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Installing Child Safety Seats Confusing Even to Automakers

15 October 1999

Installing Child Safety Seats Confusing Even to Automakers

    AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Oct. 14 -- When installing child safety
seats, most people would think the task would be easier for people in the
automotive industry.  But today, at a community-wide child safety seat
checkpoint at DaimlerChrysler headquarters, 90 percent of DaimlerChrysler
employees who had their child safety seats inspected found that they too had
it wrong.
    Studies show that 8 out of 10 child safety seats nationally are improperly
installed.
    "It's ironic that as automakers we have as much trouble installing a child
safety seat as anyone else," said Ronald Boltz, senior vice president of
regulatory affairs and general manager of passenger car operations,
DaimlerChrysler.  "While today's lesson may be considered a humbling
experience to some, we believe it demonstrates the serious need for Fit for a
Kid-a one of a kind service that gives DaimlerChrysler customers the help they
need to safely install their child safety seats."
    DaimlerChrysler's Fit for a Kid, a cooperative effort with Fisher-Price
and the National Safety Council, is a new service providing free child safety
seat inspections to its customers, by appointment, through a network of its
dealerships.
    A total of 56 seats were inspected at today's event.  Only four were found
correctly installed.  Nine seats were so damaged that they were replaced with
Fisher-Price loaner seats.
    Today's inspections were conducted by ten of DaimlerChrysler's new Fit for
a Kid inspectors in Detroit.  The checkpoint served as the final hurdle in an
intensive 32-hour inspector certification course for the Fit for a Kid
inspectors.  The inspectors were trained under the current Standardized Child
Passenger Safety Training Program, developed by the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.
    "Before the training began, I couldn't understand why it would take four
days to learn something as simple as installing a car seat," said Peter J.
Palm, a Fit for a Kid inspector at Colonial Dodge in Eastpointe.  "With so
many car seats and different types of vehicles on the market, it's no wonder
parents and caregivers find it confusing."
    Six participating Fit for a Kid dealers are now conducting child safety
seat inspections in the Detroit community.
    The National Safety Council coordinates the Fit for a Kid inspector
training and record keeping for tens of thousands of inspections.  More than
2,000 new Fit for a Kid inspectors will join Detroit's ten inspectors by the
end of next year.
    Fisher-Price is lending its child safety expertise and products to help
make the program possible.  Fisher-Price is contributing Safe Embrace car
seats as loaner seats for customers who need them.  The company also is
offering discounts on Safe Embrace Convertible Car Seats and Booster Car Seats
to customers who discover during the inspection that their current seat is not
safe.
    Currently, Fit for a Kid service is available in four pilot markets-
Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Sacramento and Washington, D.C.  The Fit for a
Kid service was introduced in metropolitan Detroit today and will be rolled
out nationally over the next year.  By the end of the year 2000, the service
will have the capacity to inspect more than 800,000 seats nationally.
    Fit for a Kid is one of several DaimlerChrysler safety initiatives.  Other
safety programs include The Back is Where It's At, Do the Buckle, The Neon
Drunk Driver Simulator, and Stop Red Light Running.  DaimlerChrysler also is a
partner in the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign.