One thing we hear often is, “well I took it to my local fire department” or “I took it to my police department and one of the guys came out and checked on it.”

Now that can range from minor misuse to a misuse that can cause serious or fatal injury in a crash. say 3 out of 4 car seats are being used incorrectly. Who should you trust for your car seat safety education if not your local fire station? They teach the parents how to install the car seat in the car and how to put their new baby in the car seat properly.)Īnd parents may be getting misinformed. (Though some hospitals, like the one we used to work for in Denver, do hire CPS techs to work with new parents. They are putting themselves at risk for liability, which is why many hospitals insist that nurses NOT help parents put their child in a car seat. While their desire to help is really admirable, it could be bad for them and for parents. Unfortunately, some firefighters who are not CPS techs do help parents out of the kindness of their heart and their desire to help. But wait, my friend went to the firehouse and they helped?

Some fire departments don’t do any car seat checks at all any more and some have a few firefighters or public information officers who are trained and do car seat checks at certain times. Many fire departments moved away from having trained Child Passenger Safety Technicians on duty. But not necessarily all the time or every firehouse or even every fire department. And sometimes you can go to the firehouse for a car seat check. It used to be said, go to your local fire station and have them install your car seat or check for proper installation. Just like you wouldn’t go to your neighbor to have him check your car seat just because he is Dad to three kids… unless you’re our neighbor. You wouldn’t go to your vet to deliver your baby just because he helped deliver a calf.

Car seat check massachusetts