Ensure your young passengers are in the right car seat

EDMONTON – Safe Kids Week runs until June 4, a time to learn more about the best ways to protect children and keep them from getting hurt.

Alberta Health Services supports Parachute’s Safe Kids Week and wants everyone who drives with children to ensure:

• Children are in the right car seat.
• The seat is correctly secured in the vehicle.
• Children are snugly buckled into the car seat.
• Seatbelt fits correctly for older children, whether or not they’re in a booster seat.

Using the right car seat in the right way reduces the risk of injury to a child in a crash by up to 82 per cent and risk of death by up to 71 per cent. Alberta law requires the driver to make sure that every child under 16 years of age is buckled up correctly.

There are four stages for child passengers: rear-facing, forward-facing, booster seat and seat belt.

Use the Child Car Seat YES Test to help you choose, install, and use a car seat or booster seat properly:

• Rear-facing Car Seat YES Test
• Forward-facing Car Seat YES Test
• Booster Seat YES Test
• Preterm or Low Birth Weight Babies and Rear-facing Car Seat

Visit Car Seat Guidelines in Alberta for more information.

Visit Parachute for more information on Safe Kids Week.

Alberta Health Services is the provincial health authority responsible for planning and delivering health supports and services for more than four million adults and children living in Alberta. Our mission is to provide a patient-focused, quality health system that is accessible and sustainable for all Albertans. Our current focus is on reducing emergency department wait-times, improving EMS response times, increasing access to surgeries, and improving patient flow.