New parents, grandparents and experienced caregivers all learned a little something at the White Rock RCMP and BCAA car-seat ‘pit stop’ on Wednesday.
“I most definitely learned more than just something, quite a lot,” said Darren Baker.
Baker said he was expecting the birth of his daughter to take place on Valentine’s Day, but he and his wife Sherilee were advised that the baby is ready to be born at “any second.”
“I’ve got two cellphones ready to go,” Baker said, who is from Port Coquitlam but works in South Surrey.
BCAA child passenger safety educator Colleen Blundell was at the pit stop – located at White Rock’s First United Church – to help parents properly secure their child seats.
“Even though I did watch the YouTube videos and read the instructions, Colleen was nice enough to point out more than a couple of reasons why it was better to move it over to the passenger side,” said Baker, who originally had the booster seat situated in the middle.
Blundell said there are two points to focus on when installing a car seat.
“It’s getting the seat installed correctly and it’s getting the child in the seat correctly,” she said.
“Those are the two big pieces. You want to make sure that those are both done correctly so that we have the best chance of surviving a car crash.”
According to ICBC, children must be restrained in a rear-facing car seat until they are at least one year old and nine kilograms (20 pounds) in weight.
Children heavier than 18 kilograms (40 pounds) and younger than nine years old or under 145 cm tall (four-foot-nine) should be in a booster seat.