Child Seats Urged After Deadly Crash

In the wake of a deadly car wreck that killed a 4-month-old boy, Ventura County health educators and law enforcement officials are stepping up a campaign to promote the lifesaving power of child safety seats and to provide the restraints to parents who can’t afford them.

Sitting on his mother’s lap, Jesus Sanchez was crushed to death Sept. 8 when the car he was in slammed into a pickup truck on Saviers Road in south Oxnard. Authorities say the infant probably would have survived if he had been strapped into a car seat as required by law.

A push to prevent such tragedies--repeated at least three other times in the county since 1991--is at the heart of a countywide crusade aimed at urging parents to buckle up their babies.

“There’s just no excuse for this to happen,” said county health educator Selfa Saucedo, who for the past two years has preached that lifesaving message to parents from Oxnard to Oak Park. “But it’s an uphill battle. This just shows me there’s a lot to be done.”

Just recently, however, the car seat crusade received a much-needed boost.

Last week, the California Highway Patrol awarded 80 child safety seats apiece to 10 hospitals and health clinics in the county for distribution to low-income parents. Recipients include the Los Robles CPSP Medical Group in Thousand Oaks, the Sierra Vista Family Medical Clinic in Simi Valley and the West Ventura Family Care Clinic.

In addition, Saucedo is helping local hospitals and other health facilities comply with a new state law requiring them to beef up car seat education efforts.

Moreover, Saucedo hopes to fashion a court diversion program--much like traffic school--aimed at funneling violators of the child seat law into classes that would drive home the message that safety seats save lives.

County court officials say they are willing to consider such a program but have concerns about how to pay for it.

“We’re just trying everything we can think of to raise awareness,” Saucedo said. “The objective is to get parents to use car seats, not to punish them.”

But Saucedo and others are quick to point out that if the child safety message isn’t enough, there are other reasons for parents to comply with the 13-year-old state law. That law requires children to ride in safety seats until they are at least 4 and weigh more than 40 pounds.

For the past three years, the CHP in Ventura County has averaged about 200 citations a year to parents or drivers who have failed to properly restrain children in car seats. The ticket carries a fine and penalties of $271 per violation.

But far too often, car seat advocates say, parents end up paying the ultimate price.

In fact, the death of Jesus Sanchez is the second in less than a year that authorities say could have been prevented by a child safety seat. In November, a 3-year-old Oxnard girl, traveling in a vehicle without a safety seat, was killed in a rollover crash on California 126.

In that case and one other in 1991, the CHP recommended that the Ventura County district attorney’s office file child endangerment charges against the parents for failing to properly restrain their children. But in both cases prosecutors declined to press charges.

“In order to file the child endangerment charge, we would have to prove gross negligence and that’s a high standard in a criminal case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee said. “We do look at the entire circumstances including the fact that these parents have paid a high price as a result of their actions.”

The district attorney’s office has not decided whether to pursue criminal charges against the parents of Jesus Sanchez.

Spurred by such tragedies, safety seat advocates say they hope to bolster outreach efforts and education programs, especially in Latino communities where such information appears to be lacking.

CHP Officer Pedro Barrera, who runs an outreach program called El Protector, said many Latinos must overcome a variety of cultural barriers when dealing with traffic laws.

Recently arrived immigrants from Mexico or Central America, for example, often don’t know the rules of the road in the United States.

“Education is a big part of it,” said Barrera, whose program recently distributed car seats to 125 hospitals and health clinics statewide. “We find that there is always an influx of Latinos coming in who are not very well versed as to the laws here. That’s why we need to constantly keep the word out there.”

Fortunately, Barrera doesn’t have to spread the word by himself.

At Ventura County Medical Center and its nine community clinics, child safety seat instruction is offered as part of childbirth education classes. Expectant parents learn everything from choosing a safety seat to how to properly install one.

At St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, health educators provide the same information to expectant parents, but also offer the classes to anyone who wants more information about child seat safety.

St. John’s, like the county hospital and clinics, tries to provide free or low-cost car seats to parents who can’t afford to buy them.

“We never have enough car seats to give to everyone,” said Sister Suzanne Soppe, coordinator of St. John’s Healthy Beginnings Program. “It seems there is always a population that is poor and that cannot afford them.”

Aiding in the effort to get car seats into the hands of those who need them most are companies such as Midas Muffler, which six years ago launched a nationwide safety seat campaign.

Through the program, parents are able to buy a top-of-the-line car seat from Midas for the wholesale cost of $42. When the seat is no longer needed, parents can return it for $42 of credit at a Midas store.

Midas dealers have distributed more than 400,000 car seats nationwide, including about 100 seats through local dealer Walter Marti, who owns franchises in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Camarillo.

“We just felt there was a need to help give back to the community in some way,” Marti said. “It’s our effort to try to help make it a little bit safer for people.”