5 Ways To Keep Your Kids Safe in the Car

Car safety is important for everyone, more so for young children. As a parent, it’s your duty to ensure that your kids are safe at all times while they’re in the car. This can be easy to do if you follow the five tips outlined below.

1. Don’t Leave Kids in Locked Cars

This first tip is important to pay attention to because of the fact that toddlers have a different heating and cooling process from adults. This means that leaving a child in a locked car can be dangerous, even if you do it for what feels like a minute. Temperatures also get exaggerated inside a car, especially one that’s parked and locked. So, while it may feel cool outside, it may get very hot inside the car and you may not be aware of this change if you’re not paying attention. With over 20% of first marriages ending in divorce in just five years, it’s important to find a trustworthy babysitter or childcare services if you’re a single parent. This way, you can safely leave your child at home rather than travel around with them and expose them to different risks.

2. Activate Child Safety Locks

Child safety locks on your car’s doors and windows are there for a good reason, so make use of them. Activate them so that your child doesn’t try to open and close the windows and doors while the car is moving. Apart from distracting you while you drive, this can also place the child at risk of different hazards. Danger can come from having their hands, fingers, or even heads trapped by a closing window when they trigger a power window, so never drive off until you’ve checked that all child safety locks have been activated.

3. Discourage Eating While in the Car

While it may be easy to distract kids in the car with an assortment of tasty treats, it’s ill-advised to do this. This is because while eating, there’s always a risk that your child will choke. If you’re driving and focusing on the road as you should, you may not notice that your child is choking, especially if they’re in a rear-facing car seat. Avoid this scenario by either offering snacks immediately before or just after a drive and then giving your child toys to keep them entertained while you drive. It’s important to do all you can to stay safe while driving and keep in mind that motorcycle accidents can be caused by being rear-ended, getting T-boned, changing lands, head-on collisions, and distracted drivers.

4. Discourage Them From Playing Around Cars

Another important safety tip is to discourage your kids from playing around cars, especially those parked in the street. A distracted driver leaving in a hurry coupled with a child’s short height is a recipe for disaster, so you need to make sure that they stay clear of parked cars at all times. Enforce this rule by always insisting on holding hands while walking through parking lots and teaching them what a car looks like when it’s backing up.

5. Secure Loose Items

When there are loose items in the car such as cooler boxes or even a beloved pet, it’s important to make sure that they’re secured well. This will keep them from becoming lethal projectiles in the event of a car accident. Even in a minor collision, loose items and pets can be thrown about at high velocities and become big safety risks. They can also damage the car, and if you get cracks greater than 12 inches long in your windshield, you will often have to replace the entire glass, which can be very costly if you do not have Kemper auto insurance.

Keep these car safety tips in mind to ensure that every single trip you take with your child will be a safe one.