Majority of car and booster seats improperly used in Nova Scotia: study

A new study out of Nova Scotia found that eight in 10 car or booster seats for children are improperly used — and the authors say that shows an urgent need to increase education for families.

The results are from a study of 1,005 child passengers in 33 communities across the province from May to November of last year.

“About a third of vehicles were not using them at all … let alone whether it was used properly,” said Tanner Van Every, a master’s student at Dalhousie University who worked on the study.

The research was conducted by the university in collaboration with Child Safety Link, a children’s injury prevention program of IWK Health.

Among the most common errors were harnesses that were too loose and car seats that weren’t securely attached to the vehicle.

“This is your race car harness, this is your parachute, this is your life-saving device. We want to make sure that you are so snug in this vehicle that if anything happens, if someone hit this car, you’re going nowhere, right?” Katherine Hutka of Child Safety Link said.

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The organization also notes an upward trend of misuse. According to Hutka, the 2024 data on just rear- and forward-facing car seats showed that 84 per cent had at least one error, compared with a similar study in 2012 that found 73 per cent of car seats were misused.

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“A key error was we just saw people moving through the phases too quickly. So don’t rush,” Hutka said.

“If there’s another takeaway here, stay in a rear-facing seat for as long as you still fit the larger seat. Stay in a forward-facing seat with a five-point harness for as long as you still fit that seat.”

She adds that children shouldn’t move into a booster seat until they’re at least 40 pounds and able to sit correctly in the seat.

“Then finally, another big error that we saw were kids moving out of the booster seat and into the adult seatbelt too quickly, so don’t do that,” she added.

The findings of this latest study were released to coincide with Child Passenger Safety Week in Atlantic Canada.