4 Ways to Childproof Your Car
Driving safely and having a vehicle equipped with the latest safety tech aren’t the only ways to protect children during car travel. Here are four ways to help ensure that young passengers are as safe as can be during daily commutes and family road trips.
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1. Use your car’s childproof locks
If your car has them, activate the childproof lock settings for doors and windows when the vehicle is in motion, as GoMechanic’s Vaibhav Arora shares. The door locks will prevent young ones from exiting the car when it’s unsafe to do so. And the window locks will help keep your children’s fingers from getting pinched in the window if they tend to fidget with any buttons within their reach during a drive.
2. Keep the car uncluttered
Regularly clean and dejunk your vehicle, to make sure the backseat and cargo area are free from unsafe objects, as Arora suggests. These could include sharp and/or heavy objects you leave in your car and just forgot to bring inside (e.g. hand weights, scissors, construction tools, etc.). Or small accessories like hair elastics and bottle caps that could be choking hazards. It can also be any half-empty water bottles and half-eaten snack bags, as well as sippy cups that fell on the floor and are hiding under the seat or in the crack between the backseat and the side door. This will keep your children from ingesting spoiled food or drink that could make them sick.
3. Secure objects in the cabin
Invest in some cargo organizers or cargo nets to help immobilize heavy and/or hard objects you’re transporting on drives, whether that’s sports equipment, luggage, or groceries. It’s a simple way to prevent items from transforming into airborne projectiles that could harm young passengers in the event of a sudden stop or a collision, as DefensiveDriving.org’s Brandon Myers shares.
4. Fasten unused seatbelts
It’s also important to buckle and lock seatbelts that you aren’t using for passengers or car seats, as Myers articulates. This will keep young ones from playing with untethered seatbelts, and possibly strangling themselves as a result.
Check out these nifty accessories to make drives with your toddler safer and less distracting. Then read about how to soothe a crying baby in the car so you can enjoy more peaceful trips.
Whitney Russell resides in Dayton, though her spirit can be found beach-bumming in Puerto Rico (the land of her half-Puerto Rican heritage). When not crafting car-related content, she can be found chasing after the most amazing toddler in the world, watching her “beaver” of a husband build amazing woodworking projects, hanging out with two crazy dogs, and visiting family and friends. She also enjoys traveling, crafting, and binge-watching period dramas when time allows. See more articles by Whitney.