State dedicates this week to Children Passenger Safety

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - This week is Children Passenger Safety Week throughout the state of West Virginia. This is after the proclamation was requested by the West Virginia Governs Highway Safety Program, in order to highlight child safely when their in a Motor vehicle.

The week is dedicated to educating Parents, Grandparents, and Caregivers on the importance of correctly installing-- and choosing the car seat for their child--

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the 42,939 traffic fatalities in 2021, 3% were children 14 and younger.

This is a trend that local officials like Bridgeport Police Department Officer, Austin Ash say emphasize the importance of this week.

" A lot of times they’ll move them up from a booster seat to a different car seat too quickly, or forward facing instead of rear facing, it can actually cause the child to get injured if they’re in an accident. So, I’m actually a child a child passenger safety technician, there’s multiple in the Bridgeport Police Department as well as the Harrison County Sheriff’s office and we actually will install car seats and if people need car seats, we’re actually able to provide them for you no cost. We’ll actually get you those and install them and teach you how to install car seats properly.”

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading killer of children and the latest research shows 46% of car seats are misused in those instances.