Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 23/02) - Want to know why researchers and the government want you to strap your infant or toddler into a child seat?

How's this: in a car crash, passengers can experience up to 50 Gs -- or 50 times the force of gravity -- during the sudden stop. That means for a brief moment a child will strain against a seatbelt with as much as 50 times their weight, or 400 kilograms for an eight-kilogram baby.

If a child is being held in the arms of a front seat passenger, it would be nearly impossible to maintain a grasp on the child, who could then crash through the front windshield.

A crash at 50 km/h is akin to tossing an unsecured child out of a third-floor window onto the ground below.

Those are frightening facts. Equally sobering is the fact over 90 per cent of childseats in Canada are improperly installed, according to Joseph Chan, a Saskatchewan researcher who came to Yellowknife earlier this month to lecture on child safety.

It's a problem with serious ramifications. NWT accident statistics over the last three years show that children up to four years old were not in childseats in one out of two accidents.

In the NWT, infants weighing less than nine kilograms must be in a rear-facing seat, while toddlers nine to 18 kilograms in weight have to be in a forward-facing seat.

Chan conducted a four-day workshop with RCMP officers, health-care workers, and department of transportation officials from across the North. The workshop was designed to train the trainers, equipping workers across the North to oversee installation of childseats.

Participants came from Inuvik, Fort Simpson, Fort Smith and Hay River.

In Yellowknife, firefighters are already trained to inspect childseats. The fire hall also has about 150 childseats that it lends out. The fire hall loans about 10 units a month, and inspects another 10. The cost to loan is a minimal security deposit, most of which is reimbursed if the seat is returned in good condition.

The inspection is free, and involves verifying that there are no structural defects with the childseat and giving instructions on proper installation. A common problem is that parents don't know how to properly install the tether -- a belt that secures a forward-facing seats to the vehicle. In newer cars, it's a simple matter of attaching the tether to the anchor on the rear package tray.

But in older cars -- especially those built before 1991 -- a tether anchor may have to be installed manually. In some cases that could even involve uprooting the gas tank, an expensive upgrade.

"When you look at the amount of money most parents spend on toys, it's a good investment," said Chan. "It only takes one crash."