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Newly Trained Technicians to Conduct Safety Seat Clinic; 50 Advocates Will Be Trained During the North Carolina Child Passenger Safety Conference

10 January 2001

Newly Trained Technicians to Conduct Safety Seat Clinic; 50 Advocates Will Be Trained During the North Carolina Child Passenger Safety Conference

    RALEIGH, N.C., Jan. 10 What:  Child Passenger Safety Clinic
    When:  2:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 16, 2001
    Where: Babies 'R Us, 1214 Bridford Parkway, Greensboro

    North Carolina's efforts to provide families more and better instruction
regarding how to keep children safe while on our roadways will get a boost
next week, thanks to the North Carolina Child Passenger Safety Conference.
Sponsored by the Governor's Highways Safety Program (GHSP), the conference
will be held January 15-18 at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel in Greensboro.
It will begin with an optional two-day Child Passenger Safety Technical
Training Class. Fifty law enforcement officers, fire & rescue personnel,
health providers and child advocates from across North Carolina are signed up
for the class. More than 200 participants are registered for the balance of
the conference.
    The newly trained technicians will join veteran checkers at a child
passenger safety clinic to be held from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 16, at
Babies 'R Us, 1214 Bridford Parkway, Greensboro. The clinic is free and open
to the public.
    The North Carolina Child Passenger Safety Conference is designed to help
advocates prepare for national and statewide Child Passenger Safety Week
activities in February, as well as to support their everyday efforts to help
families travel more safely. The keynote speaker will be Jim Hall, Chairman of
the National Transportation Safety Board. His address will mark one of his
final acts as Chairman, since he will step down from the prestigious post the
following day. Joining Hall will be officials of the National Safety Council,
the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Jim
Long, and GHSP Director Joe Parker.
    North Carolina law requires all children up to age 16 to travel buckled
up, no matter where they sit in the vehicle. Children up to age 5 and weighing
less than 40 pounds must ride in a correctly installed safety seat - in the
back seat, if the vehicle has an active passenger-side airbag. Drivers
ticketed for a child passenger safety violation will face two points on their
driver's license.