(File Photo of the PennDOT logo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Pittsburgh, PA) According to a release from PennDOT District 11, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), the Allegheny County Police Department, the PA Traffic Injury Prevention Project (PA TIPP) and the Bellevue Fire Department held a media event recently in Pittsburgh to demonstrate proper methods to buckle small children and infants in a vehicle during National Child Passenger Safety Week which runs through Saturday, September 27th, 2025. The purpose of Child Passenger Safety Week is to emphasize people needing to buckle seatbelts, booster seats or the right car seat on children each time that those children travel. Every vehicle occupant is more likely to be survivors of a crash when the right restraint is correctly secured on them. This event showed safety partners demonstrating the way that is proper to buckle a child, a toddler and an infant in a vehicle, while making sure these children are in a car seat that is properly fitted and a booster seat respectively. According to PA TIPP, from 2020-2024, 82% of the children under age 4 who were involved in crashes and restrained in a child seat sustained no injury. In 2024, the Pennsylvania seat belt use rate was nearly 88%. For every one percent increase in seat belt usage, eight to twelve lives can be saved, which is shown by national statistics. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), using the correct and properly installed car seat reduces the chance of fatal injury by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers. Adults should make sure that children and everyone buckle their seatbelts for each trip, especially children. Anybody younger than eighteen years old must buckle their seatbelt as a requirement because of the law in Pennsylvania, no matter what seat someone is in in each vehicle. A rear-facing car seat needs to be what children under the age of two must be secured in vehicles in Pennsylvania, and an approved child safety seat is what children under the age of four must be restrained in vehicles in Pennsylvania. Children need to ride in a booster seat until they are the age of eight in Pennsylvania. Child Passenger Safety Technicians are also available throughout the year to help amek sure that seats are suitable and properly installed. You can also visit the PA TIPP website by clicking here to find a car seat check event in your area. Visit www.PennDOT.pa.gov/safety for more information on Child Passenger Safety.