Keep your child safe and warm on winter car rides

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Cold weather is here, and with the cold comes the struggle of keeping kids warm and safe during car rides.

Keeping your child warm could mean dressing them in a large puffy snowsuit, as well as the possibility of extra layers underneath. However, when transporting your kid, that large snow jacket could create more dangers because you might not be able to actually tighten the seat belt around the child.

“If you’re going for a short ride, and you still have the seat belt on tight, a jacket can be okay as long as its not one of those huge, one of those puffy snowsuits that we think of people wearing. A lot of parents, what they’ll do is if they have the jacket or snowsuit on if you’re going to be going outside for an extended period of time, take it off, throw them in the car seat. If it’s a quick little jaunt, throw a blanket or something over them, that’s okay, and then put them in the car seat properly,” said Dr. Kay Kelts, family medicine physician at the Rapid City Medical Center.

Kelts goes on to say that the puffy jackets don’t work as well because it results in the seat belt being looser. The child has more room to move, meaning the child could slip through the straps and be thrown from the car seat in a vehicle crash.

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