Car-ting around your tamariki?

Did you know, Hutt City Council began offering free, potentially life-saving car seat clinics to the community in 2021? A need for these clinics was found after recognising that car seat retailers generally don’t offer this service - mainly due to the task requiring a trained on-site technician, which is not seen as cost-effective.

Car seats are only safe if they’re fitted correctly for the child and the car. Installing a car seat is often not a straightforward process and there is a lack of support and/or education for parents, families, and caregivers.

Car seats are also expensive and have a shelf life. Now more than ever there’s a lot of hand-me-ups between friends and families but these seats are not necessarily protective if they have ‘expired’ or if they’ve suffered any impact damage.

Since 2020, police have reported a sharp increase in the number of car seats that weren’t attached to the car, were expired, or deemed otherwise unsafe. In some cases, tamariki aren’t in car seats at all!

Hutt City Council run monthly Car Seat Clinics on a rotating basis out of three neighbourhood hubs: Wainuiomata, Taitā and Stokes Valley. They provide eight clinics a year, apart from December/January (due to summer holidays) and June/July (since the weather generally doesn’t allow for the clinics to be run outside). Council has invested in training our Road Safety delivery team - Pat, Dan, and Sherie - as car seat technicians.

This training has also been extended to staff who work in the hubs out of which the Car Seat Clinics are run. In fact, neighbourhood hub staff have become known as experts. One delightful story that has come out of the Wainuiomata Neighbourhood Hub saw Aroha become so trusted in her role as a car seat technician that she now has whānau come in to get seats checked outside of clinic times!

With the investment and training that council has implemented with providing Car Seat Clinics, Police refer people with tickets to the clinics to remedy their unsafe car seats and waive the ticket once addressed.

The next car seat clinic is on 13 July at Kōraunui Stokes Valley Community Hub.