For over 35 years, Drive Safe Hampton Roads (DSHR) has joined forces with community partners to collect old, used and potentially unsafe child safety seats during the Child Safety Seat Round-Up program. This program also serves to educate parents and caregivers about the possible dangers of using car seats past the date recommended by the manufacturer, using secondhand seats, and seats with missing parts or no traceable recall information. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, 863 children (aged 0-14) were killed in vehicle crashes in 2021 with 308 of them unrestrained. There were 8,539 unrestrained injuries for this age group.*
For these reasons, DSHR and its community partners: Walmart, AAA Tidewater Virginia, Hoffman Beverage Co., Waste Management of Virginia, and the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters encourage everyone to “round-up” their old child safety seats and turn them in for a “reward” throughout the month of February. The goal for the Round-Up is to convince parents & caregivers to turn in old, used or potentially dangerous safety seats so they are not resold or given to unsuspecting parents or caregivers.
As an incentive, Walmart is providing a $5 Walmart gift card for each seat turned in (limit 2 rewards per person). Safety seats can be dropped off at Walmart Supercenter select locations or at any of the eleven AAA Tidewater Virginia locations from February 1–29, 2024.
All collected safety seats will be recycled by Waste Management of Virginia, Inc. Not only will recycling these seats eliminate the potential danger to children, but it will also provide positive benefits to the community by utilizing a “greener” alternative for disposal.
Virginia law requires all children under the age of eight be properly restrained in an approved Department of Transportation (DOT) child restraint. This law applies to any driver, not just the parent or guardian, in any vehicle, on any highway in Virginia. In addition, all children ages eight through seventeen years of age must be properly restrained in a safety belt while seated in any seating position in a vehicle.
For more information, visit https://www.drivesafehr.org/get-involved/round-up/ or call (757) 498-2562.
*National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: 2021 Traffic Safety Facts – A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Data