Family travel –keeping kids safe

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Published on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 15:26

Written by Vegetarian TravelingMom

Many parents today grew up riding in the way back of a station wagon. Forget car seats, we didn’t even use seat belts. Our parents smoked, with the car windows up – who knew about second-hand smoke? And we probably had lollipops stuck in our mouths, because no one considered choking hazards, or the dental decay.

Now, woe be to the parent who doesn’t get a window screen to protect her baby from the sun streaming through the window. Or the family who blasts The Rolling Stones instead of educational pod casts or Berlitz for Babies.

Car seats are, of course, required now (though, not, oddly, when you ride in a NYC cab.  Makes you wonder.) Evenflo has a new car seat that adds extra protection in side impact crashes. The Momentum 65 convertible car seat has rigid foam that reduces the force of a side impact crash by 50%.

Car seats are rendered useless if they are not installed properly, and this is where the car seat really excels. The ‘surelatch’ technology uses a simple click to secure the car seat. This is particularly important for city dwellers who park on the street and regularly remove the car seat, or travelers who bring their car seat on vacation and need to quickly install it in a rental car.

Since my kids never met a car seat they didn’t puke in, the easy off washable pad is a Godsend. You can remove it without taking the harness straps off, so putting the pad back on is also a snap.

Sadly, the car seat cannot help when you get lost and your GPS has a melt-down.