Secretary of Transportation LaHood Urges Parents to "Choose the Right Safety Seat" for Children in the Car

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have launched a new series of Spanish-language public service announcements (PSAs) that educate parents and caregivers about the importance of properly securing their children in the right child safety seat for their age and size. The ads, released in partnership with the Ad Council, promote child car safety to unacculturated to partially acculturated Hispanic parents and caregivers who transport children up to age 12. This campaign will help those who are in the process of assimilating to the culture or whose primary language is not English, to learn the laws of the United States. It is worth mentioning that motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death among children 1 to 13 years of age.

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"Safety is our top priority for everyone on our roadways, and we're calling on parents to do everything they can to protect our most vulnerable passengers," said Secretary LaHood. "Together, the new public service announcements and website will help parents understand the differences in child safety seats, make sure they choose the right seat for their child, and properly secure them every time they get behind the wheel."

NHTSA and the Ad Council, in their efforts to educate people in the United States about the safety seats for children, revealed new PSAs that will air on television, radio, online and in print and outdoor advertising nationwide. The PSAs, created pro bono by Hispanic ad agency Casanova Pendrill, spark a feeling of "I can do more to protect my child's future" and urge parents and caregivers to immediately seek out more information on car seat safety from a number of available resources in order to lower the risk of death and injury to their child in the event of a crash. The PSAs will air in advertising time that will be entirely donated by the media and will be distributed to more than 33,000 media outlets in the United States.

Coinciding with the release of the new PSAs, NHTSA is also launching www.safercar.gov/protegidos and 1-888-PROTEGIDOS, a Spanish-language web site and free information hotline where parents and caregivers can learn about NHTSA's car seat recommendations, receive tips on car seat and booster seat installation, and find out where to get local help with car seat use and selection from certified Child Passenger Safety technicians to make sure that their seats are correctly installed.

From 2006 to 2010, 4,028 children aged 12 and younger were killed in crashes involving passenger vehicles. Another estimated 660,000 children were injured in crashes – a figure greater than the entire population of Boston, Massachusetts. It is important to remember that it is the law in this country to buckle kids in the appropriate safety seats in the back seat of the car, and that adults must wear their seat belts on every trip.

"The proper use of a child seat is the most effective way to keep a child safe in a moving vehicle," said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. "Parents and caregivers should always use a child seat and, based on NHTSA's updated guidelines, should keep their children in their current seats for as long as possible before moving them up to the next type of seat."

The Ad Council and NHTSA have worked together for more than 25 years on consumer safety PSA campaigns. Previous campaigns targeted individual stages of child passenger safety, e.g. the LATCH system, booster seats, and seat belts. From 2005 through the third quarter of 2011, the joint campaigns related to child passenger safety received $235,287,700 in donated media.

"We are proud to partner with Secretary LaHood and Administrator Strickland to extend our more than twenty-five year partnership with NHTSA by releasing new PSAs," said Peggy Conlon, President and CEO of the Ad Council. "The talented team at Casanova Pendrill created PSAs that remind parents that protecting your children's future requires using the right safety seat for their children and installing them correctly in their cars."

"We are proud of the work we are doing for this campaign and are glad to be able to make a difference in the lives of children and parents. Although car crashes are the number one cause of death in children ages one through thirteen, our campaign is not about death, it is about life; about giving our children the chance of living a long, full and happy life. We believe that message will resonate more with parents," said Ingrid Otero-Smart, President/CEO Casanova Pendrill.

"We want people to understand that when you have your children in the car, you carry with you a life full of dreams to be realized and have the responsibility to protect them. Rather than being a safety instruction manual, the campaign has the goal of raising awareness. The instructions themselves are available on the website," said Elias Weinstock, Executive VP/Chief Creative Officer.

The Spanish-language TV ads will also be available in translated English and direct audiences to http://www.safercar.gov/TheRightSeat.

For more information, visit www.safercar.gov/TheRightSeat.

SOURCE The Ad Council