Local officers are learning how to make sure children are properly restrained in their car seats.
This morning, officers from across the Coastal Bend attended a special training session at the Corpus Christi Police Department.
Representatives from Driscoll Children’s Hospital and the Texas Municipal Police Association trained officers on how to determine if a child is in the right car seat and whether the seat is properly installed. Officers were told about local free car seat checks. So, if they find a child who isn’t properly restrained, they can refer the parents to those events.
Lynda Walker, the Texas Municipal Police Association’s law enforcement liason, helped with this morning’s training. She provided officers with some alarming statistics to explain the importance of having children properly restrained. For example, she said three out of four car seats are not installed correctly.
“The local Corpus Christi statistics are that 90-percent of the time the adult passengers are restrained but only 83-percent of the time their children are restrained,” Walker said, “So, we’re hoping to increase the child restraint usage because it should be 100-percent.” She added car crashes are the number one killer of children between the ages of one to 19.
State law requires children to be in car seats until they’re eight years old or until they’re 4’9″.
Today’s training was funded by the Texas Department of Transportation.
