MAKE SURE KIDS ARE BUCKLED IN RIGHT.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

If you have a baby or young child under 60 pounds, or know someone who does, make sure you read this column because it could save a child's life in a car accident.

A few weeks ago at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California Highway Patrol officers trained in proper child car seat installation inspected about 50 cars.

They all failed. Every one of the car seats was installed improperly.

``These were people driving Jags and Mercedes, people with college educations,'' said CHP spokesman Leland Tang. ``If someone with a college degree can't put it in right, something's definitely wrong.''

Yes, it is. Wrong and dangerous.

Saturday Oct. 5 in Calabasas, Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Woodland Hills, and the CHP are sponsoring another round of free inspections of child safety seats.

``I guarantee you, it will be the same for Calabasas,'' Tang said Wednesday. ``They'll all fail.''

Eileen and Jeremy Sunderland of Encino failed the earlier inspection. ``We went to college, we're educated people who thought we had followed the instructions perfectly, but it still wasn't in right,'' Eileen said.

She found that out after waiting three months to get an appointment at her local CHP office to have her child's safety seat inspected.

Yeah, three months driving around with her baby in a car seat installed improperly. That's the other side of this story.

Not only are parents putting the seats in wrong, but they have to wait two to three months to get an appointment to find that out because the CHP is backlogged with requests.

``We're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,'' Tang said. ``We just don't have the manpower to check all the car seats that need checking.''

``After 9-11 we've been given more responsibilities without being given more officers,'' he said. ``Something had to give, and it's been community outreach programs that have suffered.''

On Jan. 1, 2002, it became law in California that children must be secured in a child safety seat until they are at least 6 years old or weigh 60 pounds.

The job of making sure those car seats are installed correctly was taken on by the CHP on July 1, 2002. Every CHP office has designated one day a week for the public to schedule an appointment to have child safety seats inspected.

But the demand has far outstripped the hours that federally trained CHP car seat inspectors are available for inspections that have been running at an 80 percent failure rate, Tang said.

Most of the time, the seats are attached too loosely or users are not utilizing the car seats' safety features properly, he said.

``It absolutely surprised me there was a two- to three-month backlog on these inspections,'' said Pavley, who responded to Sunderland's request that her office sponsor a free inspection Saturday.

``To find out now that 80 percent of these seats are being installed by parents improperly makes you look back and wonder about the car seats you put your own children in,'' she said.

``Obviously, the CHP can't go out and hire 100 more people to check out car seats because they have a lot of other important jobs to be doing out there,'' Pavley said.

``But maybe the manufacturers and retailers can start getting involved by offering free inspections to make sure the products they're selling and making money on are installed properly,'' she said. ``Maybe they could use it as a sales incentive.''

That would be a start, said Sunderland. While waiting those three months to have the CHP check her baby's car seat, she said, she called around to baby product companies and car insurance carriers, and found none that offered car seat inspections.

When I called the Automobile Club of Southern California on Wednesday, I was told by the travel and insurance company's public information office that it didn't do inspections of child car seats, but that the CHP did.

Give them a call - if you've got a couple of months to wait.

The free CHP car seat inspection Saturday is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Calabasas Park Centre, 23975 Park Sorrento, behind the Calabasas library.

It's first come, first served, so get there early because only about 60 inspections can be done. Each one takes about 30 minutes, and there will be seven inspection stations available, Tang said.

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Photo:

After a wait of three months for an inspection by California Highway Patrol officers, Eileen Sunderland straps son Garrett into a car seat that's attached and working properly.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer