When Adrienne Penake's son, Brandon, developed a high fever and began wheezing one night, the San Mateo, California, mom knew she had to get her month-old to the local urgent-care center. There was just one problem:. That night, Dave wasn't home and I was unable to connect the clips to the latches in my car," Penake recalls.
In a panic, I had to borrow the car of a friend who has kids the same age as mine to get Brandon to the doctor. Struggling to install a car seat is tough enough on a good day.
When you're in a hurry, it can be next to impossible. LATCH, which stands for Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children , is a system of built-in straps and hooks created to makes car seat installation easier. Parents aren't the only ones frustrated. So are Child Passenger Safety CPS technicians and instructors -- the very people trained to make sure your car seat is safely installed.
An AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey found that about one third of the CPS techs and instructors reported that parents are less likely to install the seat correctly using the LATCH system than with a seat belt, and 81 percent say that these errors are not obvious to parents.
With car seats getting heavier, the concern is that the excess weight could cause the lower anchors to detach during a crash. Once your child exceeds that maximum weight, he can continue to ride in the seat, but you will need to stop using the lower anchors and switch to a seat belt. You should still use the top tether, if possible. It's not a hassle if you have the right vehicle-and-car-seat combination, says Benjamin Hoffman, M. But determining that can be tricky; there's no database for parents to consult, and we have to rely on trial and error, he adds.
This is why it's so important to get your car and seat checked by a CPS tech to determine how to best install it find one at cert. For now, be sure you're not making these mistakes before you take your next ride. Lower anchors: These are the small bars in the space between the rear seat backs and the seat cushions; they're used for installing forward- and rear-facing seats.
Lower anchor strap: Attached to the bottom of the car seat, the strap has two hooks or buckles, one on each side of the seat. First, as kids get heavier, most car seats require you to use the seat belt rather than the lower anchors of the LATCH system, as the seat belt is stronger.
For most seats, it isn't safe to use both lower anchors and the seat belt at the same time. While you must, in most cases, choose between the vehicle seat belt or the lower anchors part of the LATCH system , tethers are used in addition to the vehicle seat belt or lower anchors for every forward-facing installation. That's right: Whether your forward-facing car seat is using the seat belt or the lower anchors, you always add the tether strap to secure the top of the forward-facing car seat. A few rear-facing car seats also use tether straps.
Both LATCH and the seat belt are equally safe in general, but whether one is safer than the other depends entirely on your child, your vehicle, and you. The exception is rigid LATCH, which is a safer installation method than a lower anchor strap or a seat belt. The vehicle seat belt can always be used in the traditional way, where it is routed through the belt path of the car seat and buckled in.
The seat belt holding a car seat must be locked at all times, which means the belt can not loosen at all. This is very different from how our seat belt is when we ride; it only locks when you slam on the brakes. All seat belts in the US since have a way to lock themselves in order to be used with a car seat. Most feature a mechanism where if you pull the seat belt slowly out to the very end, as you let it back in it will continue to lock and shorten.
It only switches back to normal when you let the belt back in all the way. Some car seats have built-in locking devices for the seat belt that often make installation easier. The seat belt also needs to be tightened, so that the car seat moves less than one inch in any direction when checked at the belt path. Using seat belts has a few advantages:.
Even if you're fairly familiar with various seat belt systems and how they can be used to install a car seat, you should check the vehicle owner's manual. It will tell you how to lock the seat belt if necessary and will give any important installation details specific to your vehicle. The lower anchors are metal U-shaped or horizontal bars. These are sometimes hidden inside the vehicle's seat crease, and sometimes are visible sticking out from the seat crease. Most vehicles have two sets of lower anchors, one on the driver side and the other on the passenger side in the back.
A few vehicles may have sets of lower anchors in all three backseat positions. Often the center seat in the second row and many positions in the third row in vehicles with a third row will not have lower anchors.
Most vehicles do not allow you to borrow the innermost lower anchors belonging to the driver and passenger seats to install a car seat in the center; the spacing is not the same. Even if you have one of the few vehicles that allow this, make sure you are using a car seat that allows this. There may be a tag, button, or imprinted lower anchor symbol to tell you where the lower anchors are in the vehicle. Even if you can easily locate those lower anchors, you should still read through the LATCH section of your vehicle owner's manual.
A correctly installed car seat is a safe car seat. Seatbelts can be finicky at times and the different types of locking mechanisms can be confusing. Tether anchors can be hard to find and difficult to access. A carseat installed correctly with a seat belt and tether, if forward-facing is just as safe as a carseat installed correctly with the LATCH system of lower anchors and a top tether.
In some cars, the lower LATCH anchors are buried and it is easier to get a proper install with a seat belt. It is best practice to use your car seat and vehicle safety features in a way that manufacturers intended. Please note: Very few car seats and vehicle combinations do allow the use of both together, however only when both the car seat and the vehicle indicate that it is safe to do so.
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