PA State Police To Hold Free Car Seat Installation Event In Bucks

BUCKINGHAM, PA — The Pennsylvania State Police will hold a car seat installation event on Friday, September 26, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Peddler's Village in Lahaska.

Certified Troopers will be on hand in the Giggleberry Fair parking lot to install car seats in conjunction with National Child Passenger Safety Week. No appointment is necessary.

Vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death for children, and research from NHTSA shows that 46 percent of car seats are misused. Common issues include children being in the wrong type of car seat for their age and size, and car seats being installed incorrectly — both of which leave children vulnerable to injury in a crash.

Keeping a child in the right seat for their age and size can make all the difference in a crash. Of the child passengers killed in crashes in 2023, more than a third (43 percent) were unrestrained. Car seats have been shown to reduce fatal injury by 71 percent for infants under 1 year old and by 54 percent for toddlers 1 to 4 years old in passenger cars.

Infants have the highest rate of car seat use among children who survived fatal crashes in 2023: For those under 1 year old, 95 percent of those infants were buckled. Once a child outgrows a rear-facing car seat, he or she is ready for a forward-facing car seat with a harness. Only after reaching the maximum height or weight limits of a forward-facing car seat — which takes longer than most parents think — a child should be buckled in a booster seat until large enough to fit in an adult seat belt correctly.

For more information on the Pennsylvania State Police, visit www.psp.pa.gov