Volume 3   Issue  35                            October 2004

                        

Getting To School Safely in the car

Ronald Porep

While millions of children take the bus to school and back home, millions of others are driven by caregivers or parents.
As on the bus, a child must follow behavioral rules in the car to be safe.
The most important thing you can do to keep a child safe in your car is to belt him.  Safety belts are the best form of protection passengers have in the event of a crash.  They can lower your risk of injury by 45%.  A child is four times more likely to be seriously injured or killed if ejected from the vehicle in a crash. 
Everyone needs to be buckled up properly.  That means once the car is moving, everyone has a seat belt on and keeps it on all through the ride.  NO squirming in the seats.  NO playing around with each other’s safety belts.  Everyone is belted and stays that way or else the offender faces serious consequences when he gets home.  Your child must be belted in to prevent injury or even save his life in case of an accident, a fast stop or even a swerve to avoid trouble.
Besides being firmly belted in, your children must be on their best behavior during any ride.
NO throwing things at one another in the car.  Many accidents have been caused by a driver being startled by something hitting him from inside the car.
NO fighting in the car.  Many mothers have had an accident while trying to break up a fight in the car between siblings.  Fighting in the car should be one of those offenses requiring the most severe consequences.  In fact, you will do a lot for your child if you teach him not to fight at all but sit down with the person he has a disagreement with and work things out in a calm manner. 
And, NO loud noises or shouting in the car.  Loud music can distract a driver quite easily as can a shouting.  If your children need their tunes, but them cassette or CD players with headphones.  If you have older teens using PDAs (personal digital assistants) for school work, extra memory can be added to store music and even audio books to be played through headphones.  Maybe the ride home can be educational as well as quiet with a quality audio book.
Stress to your children that car riding is serious business.  This will help keep them safe in the car.
It may also carry over when your children mature and get behind the wheel.
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