Thursday, November 1, 2012

Applauding NBC4 & Liz Crenshaw: Child Safety


The odds are 1 in 2. These odds are pretty bad and this is the misuse rate of child safety seats in the United States. Tonight at 5:00 pm, Emmy award winning consumer reporter, Liz Crenshaw, will show how to select the right child safety seat for your child, and more importantly, how to properly install it. The segment airs on the evening news program on NBC News 4.
Fitzgerald Auto Mall is passionate about the subject, passionate enough to commit our own resources and time to protecting kids. Our employees put in hundreds of volunteer hours as certified installers at our monthly Fitzgerald Child Safety Seat Program events. In 1999, my first year of the program, the misuse rate was 97%. The numbers have dropped to 50% year to date, but that’s still too high.
I’m happy that Liz Crenshaw is drawing attention to how seats have to be properly installed to keep your child safe.
Fitzgerald associates have installed and inspected over 42,000 child safety seats. No other local volunteer program in the United States has ever achieved this many child safety seat inspections within a single program.
The success of this program is the public-private partnership we have with the local Montgomery County police and fire rescue volunteers, and working with the office of the Montgomery County Safe Kids Coalition. They have been integral in helping to organize and promote the events.
U.S. National Highway Traffic and Safety states the misuse of car seats remains a big problem and motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children ages 3 to 14. The latest numbers show that every day in the US, an average of 4 children younger than 14 were killed and 529 were injured in motor vehicle crashes.
I hope you watch Liz Crenshaw’s report tonight at 5:00, and mark your calendars for the next monthly child safety seat inspection on Thursday, November 15, from 10 am-12:30 pm. Monthly inspections are held on the third Thursday of every month, from March to December at the White Flint Rockville dealership on Nicholson Lane. Visit www.FitzMall.com for details or to make an appointment.