Central Los Angeles : Police Safety Program Offers Car Seats to New Mothers

The mother of a Valentine’s Day baby was wheeled into a pink-curtained room at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital/Drew Medical Center in Willowbrook to receive a free car seat from police officers as part of a safety week event.

“This is a very wonderful thing for me and my new baby girl,” Tommie Jones, 31, said. “The instruction is helpful. I learned something more about safety for my baby.”

Members of the Traffic Committee of the Peace Officers Assn. of Los Angeles County presented the teary-eyed mother with a car seat and gave her instructions on how to properly put her new baby, Remembrance, in the car.

As part of National Child Passenger Safety Week, the Glendale Police Department’s Multicultural Child Safety Seat Project gave a car seat to every baby born at the hospital Wednesday.

The purpose of the special law enforcement event was to remind drivers and parents to obey safety, seat and truck laws, and buckle up their babies.

National statistics show that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional injury-related deaths for children under the age of 1.

In 1994, 56 children under age 4 were killed in traffic collisions in California. Of those, 17 children were in car seats that were being used correctly, the California Highway Patrol said. . . .