Safety Caravan Rolls Out for Daycare Van Inspections

BYRON, Georgia (41 NBC/WMGT) – More than 350,000 Georgia children rely on child care providers for transportation to and from daycare and pre-school. To ensure the youngsters are safe the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS), Georgia Department of Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are meeting with daycare providers across the state.

Tuesday, they were in Byron at the Agape Way Daycare for a van inspection and demonstration.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure that the daycare operators are using the proper techniques to secure child seats in their vans and in their activity buses,” said the Director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, Harris Blackwood. “We want to make sure that these children are as safe as they can be.”

According to the Program Consultant for the Georgia Department of Public Health, Sharon Conrad parents and caregivers make mistakes when they do not follow the instructions printed on the car seats and booster seats.

“We want to make sure that every child is safe,” said Conrad. “Every child under the age of eight [should] be in a child safety restraint system or booster seat.”

Some of the most common mistakes made when using a car seat, includes buying a seat that does not fit the child. Other mistakes are not properly setting the harness straps or the chest pit.

The child care van inspections are part of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, caravan.

The caravan is making it’s way through the state and middle Georgia this week in recognition of National Child Passenger Safety Week.

The caravan is a cooperative effort between the GOHS, Children’s Hospital at the Medical Center of Central Georgia (MCCG). MCCG’s Kohl’s Kids safety Zone, local law enforcement, Bibb County school administrators and teachers, the University of Georgia Traffic Injury Prevention Institute, the Georgia Department of Public Health, Office of Injury Prevention, Bibb County Health Department and others.