Editor’s Note: With National Child Passenger Safety Week concluded, Charlotte Dads Group organizer Darrell Humphrey writes about his chapter’s visit to the North Carolina facility of car seat and stroller manufacturer Britax, one of our longtime partners. You can watch a broadcast of the visit and learn more about child car seat safety on our Facebook page.
Keeping our kids safe, especially when traveling, is one of a parent’s greatest responsibilities. One of the best ways is to put them in the right car seat, at the right time, and use it the right way. To learn more about this, the Charlotte Dads Group went to the Britax Child Safety Warehouse on Sept. 19 for an afternoon of learning and demonstrations.
As we toured the facility, we learned how Britax manufactures car seats in a “cell” of about 20 people. Starting with the shell, to the nuts and bolts of the seat, all the way to packaging the completed product for distribution is handled by one team. Even though the car seats are made to order, each Britax seat is made by hand here in the United States.
IMPORTANT TIP: Regardless of what brand of car seat you buy, it’s critical to register it with the manufacturer. This way, in case of recalls, you will be notified.
After observing the manufacturing process, we were given a demonstration on how to correctly install the new Britax Advocate ClickTight. Britax Child Passenger Safety Advocate Sarah Tilton showed us how easy it was. During the demonstration, she said three out of four car seats are installed incorrectly. Despite this, 95 percent of those parents believe their car seat is installed correctly. With such an alarming statistic we realized that as parents need to make sure we read the installation documents correctly. If there are still questions, visit your local fire or police department for help.
After we completed with the tour, Britax invited us to their test track. This is where they crash test their car seats to make sure they comply with all safety standards given by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Our visit was a huge success, and even made the local TV news.
Really interesting article. I agree with you 100% about registering your car seat. If there is any sort of recall you are going to want to know about it and ASAP. Thanks for sharing!