Children are safer riding rear-facing and should ride rear-facing as long as possible until they reach the maximum rear-facing height or weight rating for the seat. Once top rear-facing limits are reached, use a forward-facing car seat with a harness and a tether. Keep your child in a car seat with a harness until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit for the harness.
Children should remain in forward-facing car seats
There are a variety of seat options:
Read labels and car seat instructions
Make sure child is within weight/height limits
for the seat and head is more than one inch below the top of the car seat shell.
READ the instruction manual
AND the safety belt/seat section in your vehicle manual for proper installation guidance.
Children under 13 years old
should always ride in the back seat.
Install safety seats tightly
in the vehicle; less than an inch of movement at the belt path.
If using a safety belt to install
LOCK the vehicle safety belt to keep it tight; refer to labels on belt, vehicle owner’s manual, and car seat instruction manual.
are unintentionally misused. Partial misuse of a safety seat reduces its effectiveness against severe injuries.
Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences
at Old Dominion University
Community Health and Research
E.V. Williams Hall Pediatrics
855 W. Brambleton Avenue
Norfolk, Virginia 23510
Phone: 1-757-446-5799
E-mail: carsafetynow@evms.edu
Materials are free for educational, nonprofit use; citation is appreciated.
The Car Safety Now program was supported by a series of grants from the Virginia DMV Highway Safety Office (Principal Investigator: Kelli England, Ph.D.). The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Virginia DMV, or Virginia Highway Safety Office.