   
Child safety seats get inspection
By MONICA HOOPER
LOG CABIN STAFF WRITER
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 State Farm Insurance joined with Arkansas Children's Hospital, the Conway Police Department and Arkansas Safe Kids for Child Safety Day Safety Seat Check in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on Harkrider on Saturday. Certified technicians checked child passenger seats and help parents with properly installing the child safety seats and child booster seats.
Spokesman for State Farm Insurance Gary Stephenson said that 83 people came through the 11 check stations on Saturday.
"There's several things that the technicians are looking for," Stephenson said on Saturday. "The problem is three-fold and you can remember this by IRS. 'I' is for installation, a lot of the seats are not put in properly, they're put in the wrong location or they're not snug enough ... 'R' is right size and fit, it's not one size fits all for kids. When kids get bigger they need to move from a safety seat to a booster seat. You don't want to have a kid or is too small for a safety seat or too large because that will cause issues that will determine where the strap comes across. You don't want to strap across the neck or across the abdomen. You want to strap across the hip joint, hip girdle and the chest. 'S' is for structural integrity. As seats get older they tend to weaken sometimes, some of them are subject to recall, so we're looking at the seats to see if it is structurally sound. If the seat has been through an accident it's been compromised possibly, we want to get that out of there and get a new seat in there."
When technicians found faulty or damaged seats they replaced them with child safety and booster seats provided by a grant from State Farm and the Arkansas Children's Hospital.
"State Farm funds the grant through the Children's Hospital. We bring probably 100 or so new seats (to the check sites) and as we find damaged seats or old seats that need to be replaced or that have been recalled, we replace those for free."
The most common problem is "most adults don't understand how snug the seat needs to be. You don't just set the seat in the backseat and run the belt through it. It's got to be really snug. You need to get in the car and press down the back seat, really snug it up and then cinch it down. There's a procedure," Stephenson added that another common problem were damaged and worn out seats.
By the day's end Stephenson said that 57 seats were changed out during the event. Stephenson added that those wishing to have their child seat inspected may contact the Conway Police Department.
(Staff writer Monica Hooper can be reached by e-mail at monica.hooper@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1266. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
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