On a summer North Carolina evening in 2004, Wendy Tischler Thomas and husband, Nathan, were driving around the neighborhood trying to lull their 2-year-old daughter Piper to sleep.
Stopped a red light, the purr of the 2001 Nissan Xterra motor began working its magic when a drunk driver slammed into the car stopped behind the Tischler Thomas family. That car then slammed into the young family.
Piper was in a rear-facing carseat and was safe from harm. The other two cars were totaled. But the moment stuck with Tischler Thomas, heightening her awareness of the potential for tragedy. She had already been pretty vigilent in selecting Piper's carseat (while pregnant, she admitted to peering into random cars in the neighborhood to get an honest look at what people were buying). Her research led her to the Britax Advantage and the Britax Marathon, the former a rear-facing seat for children up to 33 pounds, the latter a forward-facing unit for children up to 65 pounds.
Friends had noticed her concern and encouraged her to become a certified child passenger safety technician. For eight hours a day for a week she learned about physics, some sobering statistics, what seats are good, how they're tested and how to properly install them. It was largely through this class that she learned that, "carseats should be replaced after accidents, and seatbelts need to be checked."
Now some four years later, relocated to Queen Anne per her husband's new job at Amazon.com, and a second child now 16-months old, Tischler Thomas is teaching other parents around Seattle what to do and what not to do with carseats.
In the Starbucks at Queen Anne Avenue North and Boston Street, Tischler Thomas sat to chat about carseat safety, her 16-month-old daughter, Laine, playing nearby at the kids' table with her dad.
Wearing a T-shirt with the words, "Using your carseat properly" scrawled across the front, Tischler Thomas rattled off some of the variables to consider when considering carseats. They included knowing weight limits, making sure the car is maintained, how a seat would be affected during a collision and even where to put cats and other random objects that during an accident could be lethal projectiles.
"The crash test standard is at 30 miles per hour, that's what the seats are tested at," she said, adding that the equation Weight x Speed x Force, can turn a 60-pound dog into a 1,800 pound flying object if not secured. Loose packages in rear storage areas of cars should also be stowed in places such as footwells or against the back of the rear seat.
In her four years on the job, Tischler Thomas hase seen som common mistakes. One is when parents transition their children into bigger seats. The longer a child can legally ride rear-facing, the safter it is, she said. Another issue is the misuse of the lower anchor and tether for children or LATCH. This is that carseat strap that is supposed to clip to the vehicle, but some vehicles don't allow for it.
One of Tischler Thomas' key tips is, "make sure you can't pinch anything between the shoulders," Tischler Thomas said, running her fingers under her daughter's carseat harness. "The harness has to be snug."[[In-content Ad]]
