Navigating Distractions with Kids in the Car – S4E5

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Parenting Brief. I’m your host, Jessica Stewart Gonzalez, an Arizona [00:00:10] working mom and chief of the Office of Children’s Health at the Arizona Department of Health Services. Looking for answers to your most pressing parenting questions? Whether you’re navigating pregnancy, [00:00:20] caring for a newborn, or raising a growing toddler, our podcast is your go to source for expert advice and practical solutions.[00:00:30]

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Thank you for joining me for another episode of The Parenting Brief. Safety should always be a top priority when you’re behind the [00:00:40] wheel, but driving with an infant or toddler in your backseat means there are additional things to consider. That’s why we’re talking about keeping your family safe in the car, whether you’re on the highway or [00:00:50] just pulling into your driveway.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: With us today is Director Jesse Torres of the Arizona Governor’s [00:01:00] Office of Highway Safety and Gabby Gallegos, the Occupant Protection Coordinator. Thank you so much for being here. What’s the most common cause of [00:01:10] accidents in Arizona and on Arizona highways?

Jesse Torres: Well, the top three are speed, distracted driving, and [00:01:20] being under the influence.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Specifically on distracted driving. I think most people think that distracted driving specifically on like texting and driving. [00:01:30] Can you elaborate a little bit on what distracted driving really means?

Jesse Torres: Well, distracted driving is not just texting or being on your cell phone, but [00:01:40] it encompasses anything that can take your attention away from the focus of physically, maneuvering your vehicle and [00:01:50] all the dynamics of watching what’s going on around you.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: And having kids in the car certainly serves as its own distraction at times. [00:02:00] I know I’ve experienced that.

Jesse Torres: Absolutely, from being a parent

Jesse Torres: and also now a grandparent. They’re a great distraction, but certainly [00:02:10] they can be a distraction.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: How do parents find that balance between safety, focusing on the road, and ensuring that [00:02:20] kids are not being a distraction?

Jesse Torres: Well, it’s not that the children, you can stop them from being a [00:02:30] distraction because children will act as children act. What we can do as parents and as drivers is realize that it’s a small [00:02:40] snippet of time, we can get to where we need to be and address whatever is going on, or there’s always the ability to pull over into a safe [00:02:50] space and then adjust or take care of any problems.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: So really, even from my own experience, you know, kiddo [00:03:00] drops the sippy cup, throws a shoe, drops the book, whatever the case may be, and I know my first thought and reaction is to try and pick it up so that [00:03:10] we could just take care of not having a screaming child. And, those are not the things we should be doing.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: We should let that sippy cup stay on the floor. We [00:03:20] should let that book, you know, be out of reach and just kind of manage that situation without trying to fix it.

Jesse Torres: That’s [00:03:30] absolutely correct. And if you weigh this in a scale or a balance, Mental balance in your mind, the uncomfortableness or the child being [00:03:40] upset for that amount of time versus getting into an accident where you or your child has to go to the [00:03:50] hospital, we know where the balance of that is. And we just have to keep that in mind. Again, as a parent, as a grandparent, you want [00:04:00] to make sure that your child or grandchild is happy all the time, 100 percent of the time, but that’s just not realistic. What we can get them is to [00:04:10] make sure that they get home. or to school, or wherever they’re going in a vehicle safely, and that truly is being a good parent or guardian.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Everything loose [00:04:20] in the car can become a projectile in a crash, but kiddos want to bring sippy cups, snacks, toys. Should parents keep those items out of the car, or is there a safer way to handle [00:04:30] them?

Jesse Torres: Yes, anything that is not tied down in a vehicle becomes a projectile. But again, realistically, we want to [00:04:40] weigh those things with a sippy cup or snacks in a plastic baggie.

Jesse Torres: Now, yes, it becomes a projectile, but with weight and physics, it’s kind of a [00:04:50] soft projectile. The sippy cups or toys, they do become hard projectiles. And what I would recommend is that you put them [00:05:00] In the lower, where the cars have the cutouts or the molding for water bottles or cups, I would put them down [00:05:10] there only because they are lower.

Jesse Torres: They won’t hit the children in the face or the head or the body. And if they’re going to come out of there, it’s going to be a lower [00:05:20] level. Won’t impact the driver, things of that nature. You know, I understand, again, with having kids and grandkids, but we’ve [00:05:30] now become a society where we put the tablets in with car seats and all kinds of stuff.

Jesse Torres: And all those are projectiles. And we have to [00:05:40] keep in mind the physics of that and the weight. Once you impact something, that tablet now is going 30, 40 miles an hour, [00:05:50] whatever speed you were going. and stopped going.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Are there things that parents can add to their car to prevent objects from becoming [00:06:00] projectiles?

Jesse Torres: There are, but you have to remember that any add ons either to the car seat or your vehicle, [00:06:10] the vehicle was not tested for those. And so the results may be different from the reports that are reported to the [00:06:20] manufacturer and the U. S. ADOT. And the same thing with the car seats. So, some people will take a towel and put it [00:06:30] around the child to kind of have the child sit upright or put some cute little cushions in there.

Jesse Torres: Or a shawl that the grandmother knitted. That safety [00:06:40] seat was not tested with any of those things in there. So they don’t recommend that you put anything in there. You use it as it comes from the [00:06:50] factory. And vehicles are the same way, they are tested from the factory the way they come. So any add ons that you put, they weren’t tested [00:07:00] for that.

Jesse Torres: So that’s how they can become projectiles and sometimes lethal projectiles.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Can you tell me a little bit about the Children are [00:07:10] Priceless Passengers program?

Jesse Torres: I am going to let Gabby answer that question because she works with it quite a bit. She’s, again, a mother and very [00:07:20] well versed.

Gabby Gallegos: So, well, we call it the CAP program, but Children are Priceless Passengers, what that is, that actually started back in, um, in Tempe [00:07:30] back in 1994, in partnership with our office, and what that is, is strictly just for child safety seat and this is for either people that got citations [00:07:40] or people that actually want to take the class out of, you know, their own choice is a two hour class and it teaches them the proper installation of a car seat [00:07:50] because I know all of us went through it when we put a car seat in the beginning.

Gabby Gallegos: We’re thinking we’re putting it correctly and we’re really not. Four out of five car seats are not [00:08:00] properly installed. And that’s what the class teaches you about.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: So that class teaches like a parent or a caregiver how to install the car or is [00:08:10] that for professionals to take that class?

Gabby Gallegos: That class is for a parent or a caregiver.

Gabby Gallegos: There is a small fee with the class, but sometimes it’s waived because the [00:08:20] majority probably can’t pay that 35 fee. But at the end of the class anybody that doesn’t have a car seat, they do receive a car seat.[00:08:30]

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: Head to this episode’s show notes for helpful resources on keeping your family safe on the road. While you’re there, hit the follow button and become [00:08:40] a part of our parenting community. If you learned something new today, please share this episode so we can all get home safe. Until next time, this is Jessica.

Jessica Stewart Gonzalez: You’ve got [00:08:50] this.