well this week is National child passenger Safety Week in the M of police and fire department and other law agencies across the state are teaming up together to make sure that our kids are safe on the roadways with me this morning is Sergeant Dave Mikey here to kind of fill us in on the fact that there are a lot of kids that that get hurt in the accidents more so than the adults yes absolutely um National statistics show that the leading cause of death for children age 1 to 13 is car crashes beats out all the other issues drowning and any medical issues they have so very significant factor for us what what's the main reason for that well we would like to think that there a significant cause of that is improperly installed car seats or improper use of car seats so we've come out today to to try and show your viewers how to properly install them and how to use them what are some of the tips you give parents out there when they're having their first child they're looking at car seats because there's so many of them the Prices range from you know 50 bucks up to $3 $400 I I mean you get a better car seat if you spend 400 bucks and your child's safer than the $50 we don't want to say that and we wouldn't push a particular brand but there's a cardinal rule for us three rules actually and most important is make sure the car seat fits your child make sure the car seat fits your car and then make sure it's installed or used properly and the way to do that is to consult the manufacturer's instructions you can go online there's a lot of information online I know when I had my first child the hospital actually taught me how to properly install the car seat we also have all sorts of educational events including one coming up next Saturday uh your viewers can come out and and watch how to do it and get a demonstration one of the professionals out here is the detective Charles pesterfield and you've got a couple different car seats and boosters I'm glad you brought these I've got mine to show as well and and really pick it apart please I feel like I'm a pretty h i do repairs at home pretty knowledgeable guy follow the instructions but you automatically said oh I see something wrong yeah um we we normally we like to have the child in here to kind of get a glimpse of uh the way that he's buckled in or she's buckled in good to know cuz we talk about that event coming up on Saturday next Saturday so bring your child um but one thing I do see that just kind of pops out at me is um a lot of people like this aftermarket stuff that they buy at the store okay and you want to save your seats okay that's fine however we instruct that you don't put anything between the car seat and the seat itself especially in a forward- facing model like this okay because anything that you're taking away from the car seat or adding to the car seat increases the amount of ride down that this child's going to and you know you'll get it nice and tight however this this is not uh isn't what we what we recommend you to do okay um it's your child if you want to save your seat it's completely up to you but we're more important about the child and keeping the child safe here so nothing in between the child seat and this um not even a sheet not even a sheet to protect your seat okay um don't worry about your seats we're more worried about the Child Safety so in a case like that and then again what we want to do is make sure that this is in here correctly I don't want this sliding more than more than an inch side to side so is that too much that's probably too much we probably want to tighten that up a little bit okay and then uh I can go through and how to tighten that up is i' teach you how to actually use the seat belt correctly and to make sure that we've got that locked in place and used correctly um you do have the top tether in there which is good I like to see that because that helps reduce the amount of head Excursion um that was mandated by federal motor vehicle safy expl that to people head Excursion no I just that top anchor okay the top anchor have we'll gra exle back here um this is the top tether anchor and a lot of uh and forward- facing seats it's mandated that it's actually uh on the seat itself if you have an older seat usually the older seats are probably outdated and not used anymore that uh that require them they do come with a seat so it needs to be used in the forward facing position not all seats will have them used in the rear facing position some do mind you but it's all going to be learned about this in this magical book that every seat gets and it's called the owner's manual okay many people don't take the time to to read this um they need to take the time to read this to make sure that they're using the seat belt correctly and also grab out the owner's manual with the car to ensure that you're putting this uh the seat in a safe location inside of the car so use both the owner's manual for this and the owner's manual your car and take the time to read through that and find out exactly where you can put this seat safely and this that you're using it safely for your child experience what because you go through different levels of car seats you've got of course the first one the second one and I'm being very generic you know second one and then you go to the to the booster seat at some point which one do you find parents have the hardest time installing um the hardest one installing is usually probably um the combination seat or or this this is not a combination seat this is actually goes from uh pretty much from birth to um actually no this is a combination seat um this goes from forward facing only but it goes with the harness and then without the harness you're able to use this so it's kind of a grow into seat but it's the the rear facing and the forward facing which is probably what you have in here which is the what we call a convertible seat okay it went from rear facing to forward facing um those seem to be the hardest ones because there's two different belt paths rear facing you're going to use the this belt path down here is the child's flipped backwards and then you're going to use the correct belt path which you've got yours in here um up here for forward facing that seems to be really confusing with parents especially if it comes with the lower anchor system so and that's a whole another another thing detect thank you very much thanks for breaking that down for us and real quick uh Sergeant Mikey the event is next Saturday from what time to yes next Saturday it's from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at the Walmart in the parking lot at Walmart at Country Club and Baseline it's 240 West Baseline in Mesa wonderful thank you very much thanks guys for coming in and doing that and again bring your child down with the car seat they recommend to make it fit properly more good morning Arizona coming up after the break