Blog: Day Three of CPS Training in Abu Dhabi

Posted by: Lorrie Walker at Dec 14, 2011 12:00 AM CST

Keywords: Education

| Send This | Article Link | Comments(2)

Greetings from Abu Dhabi! Kerry Chausmer, Alexis Kagiliery and I just finished Day Three with this class of truly devoted child passenger safety advocates. This class “gets it”- even though English is not their first language and they are struggling with some of our words like frayed, slack and conventional. They are getting ready to go back to their jobs and make something happen for child passenger safety in this place where many of them in the class, but not all, have never used car seats for their children. They just never thought about it and car seats are SO expensive here. A “cheap” convertible seat can run about $400 and everyone has large families.

There are no programs to subsidize car seats to make them affordable to the masses and it appears that mostly Europeans and Americans are the ones driving their children in car seats. One of the nurses told me today that the common belief is that parents might consider using a car seat after children are about 6 months or so but smaller babies under 6 months are better off and safer in their mother’s arms. Many families hire nannies just to hold babies in cars. They are cheaper than car seats!

One thing technicians will be interested in is how short the car seat instructions are here. They are mostly line art and are difficult to follow. There might be 4 or 5 pages at most. Nothing like our 80 page, step by step, minute by minute instructions in the States. The car seats do not come with locking clips even though many cars have emergency lock retrackers and sliding latchplates (which would require a locking clip). So, the label on the seat showed one way to put the seat belt through the seat, the manual showed another and as a problem solving solution, our class administrator Reem Al America went to the manufacturer’s YouTube video and showed us all how to secure the seat. Thank God for iPhones, YouTube and creative manufacturers who anticipated the need!

Tomorrow is the car seat checkup event and we are hoping for a few cars with children to show up. It may be tough to get enough families but we are ever hopeful! Wish us luck!

More About Child Passenger Safety

Comment on this Blog Post:

Posted by Malvina Duncan at: December 23, 2011

WoW! What a tremendous effort on both our US team and the Abu Dhabi team. It is inspiring to see this despite the challenges! Great work!

Posted by hala alani at: December 16, 2011

hi, i think it is fantastic to have a place where you can check if you have installed the carseat properly. i am living in abu dhabi and would love to know where i can have that checked. i also gave trouble with my maxi cosi carseat which i payed so much for thinking it was the safest but my son keeps getting his arms out it is so frustrating. please contact me and let ne know where i can go to check if i have installed my carseat properly. plus i just bought belts to attach to the airplane seatbelt to use instead of a car seat and want to know if they are safe. thankyou very much and waiting to hear from you.