Overview

If you had the chance to stop a child killer, would you at least try to? Children dying in car crashes are predictable and therefore preventable. I’d rather go down trying than give up. – Charles Hirata, Maui Police Department

This section of the module provides a framework for certified child passenger safety technicians (CPSTs) to use when instructing law enforcement officers about:

  • Current tribal, state and local child restraint and seat belt laws
  • The correct use of a child safety seat
  • The gross misuse of child safety seat while on patrol

If you are a certified CPST, you can train law enforcement officers, but you may need to enlist the help of a regional CPST to keep a good instructor-to-student ratio. You’ll know whether or not you need to do this when your law enforcement contact confirms a list of officers attending the course.

It is important to recognize the difference between a car seat education class for parents and caregivers versus a training for law enforcement officers on their role in child passenger safety.

 

Parents and Caregivers Law Enforcement Officers
Focuses on ·     Best practices: for example, the best types of car seats or seat belt systems

·     Touch choices: for example, what to do when you don’t have access to a child safety seat

·     How to distinguish between gross use and gross misuse of child safety seats

·     How to spot child safety seat violations

 

As part of this training, law enforcement officers will not receive a CPST certification, but they will receive a certificate of participation. They’ll also have a better knowledge on how to:

  • Direct parents and caregivers to CPSTs for assistance
  • Educate parents and caregivers about state and tribal laws
  • Give a ticket or a verbal/written warning for a child restraint offense

It is the duty of the officer to enforce the child restraint law, rather than what happens after a citation is issued.

1. Understand your training options.

When training law enforcement, you have a few options:

  1. Have dedicated CPS techs provide training for individual law enforcement officers: This option is very costly and time consuming for CPS techs, so it’s not be the best option.
  1. Provide a two-hour course for all law enforcement officers.

 

The upcoming sections will explain how to execute the second option, which we’ve found is the best option.

2. Understand the benefits of the training to law enforcement officers.

Even though law enforcement officers have gone through basic training, they can still benefit from more training, especially training on child passenger restraint issues. So how does a training benefit law enforcement officers? There are several ways.

  1. The main reason this training is important for law enforcement officers is this: Injuries and fatalities from lack of seat belt or child restraint use are a lot higher for Native Americans. And most importantly, many injuries and fatalities from car accidents are preventable.
  2. Officers will gain a better understanding of tribal and state child restraint and seat belt laws. This makes officers much more comfortable talking to caregivers about child restraint laws, especially during traffic stops where a child is not properly buckled in.
  3. Officer will be able to identify the correct use, or misuse, of a child safety seat. Law enforcement officers only have a short time to evaluate whether a child is properly restrained. It may be seconds as a vehicle passes by. Or 3-5 minutes during a routine traffic stop. Or worst case scenario, at a vehicle crash site where there may be injuries or fatalities. The training focuses on the misuse, or rather gross misuse, and spotting the violations.
  4. When an officer pulls someone over, they’ll know whether to give a ticket or a verbal or written warning.
  5. Officers will receive a Certificate of Participation after course completion, which goes in their personnel file.
  6. Officers will also receive a child safety seat patch, which they can attach to their uniforms.
  7. Officers can voluntarily sign a law enforcement pledge to enforce child restraint laws.

Officers can make the most of future traffic stops by:

  1. Handing out stickers to children who are properly using car seats.
  2. Giving the driver a card with a CPST’s contact info.
  3. Explaining websites to visit for more information on child car seat safety.
  4. Sharing information about community classes that provide car seats.
 3. Schedule training.

To schedule a condensed CPS technician course for law enforcement officers, here are the steps you should take:

  1. Find out what current traffic safety program or highway safety program are available to officers.
  1. Find out who is in charge of scheduling training for these programs.
  2. Make an appointment with the program’s training officer to discuss the training.
  3. Meet with the program’s training officer and explain the specifics of the course:
  • It will be a two-hour course.
  • It will benefit officers in several ways
  • It will help both you and the training officer accomplish the goals of your programs instead of doing them separately.

My experience (Bernadine):

After the child restraint code was adopted, we were actually surprised and wondering, “What next?” Other programs did not find success in passing a child restraint law so we didn’t expect to either. When we approached the Colville Tribal Police Department, we were told that they were aware of the new law and that incentives or training was not really necessary, as this was part of their everyday job.

Originally the training was scheduled for four hours and would include basics of child passenger safety and practical exercises of spotting violations. The initial training focused more on “best practices” than spotting the violation and was also shortened to two hours. Since then, with more research and speaking with other law enforcement officers, the edited training is geared toward spotting gross misuse violations during routine patrol by a law enforcement officer.

4. Conduct a training.

The main resource you’ll want to use for this two-hour training is our Child Passenger Safety Training for Tribal Law Enforcement Officers presentation. You can download this training and edit it to tailor your specific community.

Ideally, four to eight hours would cover the presentation and practical exercises. But it’s impractical for most law enforcement agencies to schedule multiple trainings and take officers away from their patrol duties.

Here’s a brief list of what to cover in the training:

  • Discuss why law officer-specific training is important.
  • Review the basic types of child restraints, airbags, and distracted driving issues.
  • Identify the correct use and gross misuse of child passenger restraints through photos and practical exercises.
  • Review statistics on prevention/education verses injury/death.
  • Explain how the four E’s of traffic safety correspond to child safety seat use.
  • Identify ways to work together to educate and enforce the local and state child restraint laws.
  • Review the “Train the Trainer” approach.
  • Explain the media campaigns that are addressing the new tribal child restraint law.
  • Encourage participation in a SNAP course, or even consider becoming a CPST.
  • Explain options on how to proceed with warnings or citations.
  • Explain resources and training materials you use with community members:
    • SNAP manual
    • CPST student manual
    • Training dolls
    • Seat belt demo kit
    • Photos
5. Encourage future law enforcement involvement.

At the end of the training, make sure you discuss ways that law enforcement officers can become more involved in child passenger safety. For example:

  • Help at an information booth. That way, parents and caregivers get used to seeing officers in the community.
  • Issue stickers and other incentive items to children when they see them using their car seat.
  • Become a certified CPST. This might be a requirement of some highway safety grants to certify an officer.
  • Drop in at a car seat education class. It’s a good way to meet parents and caregivers.
  • Recruit other people to participate in the child safety seat campaign.

My experience (Bernadine):

 With the first law enforcement training I held, I had been overzealous in my attempt to get the officers to want to approach child passenger safety the way I would as a CPS Technician. I realized during the training, that this was not the approach needed. One officer made the comment that he didn’t have the time to see if a child was properly restrained when on patrol. So, after some time, it finally hit home that these law enforcement officers are not going to see what I see at a car seat check-up event, or a class. It’s about the gross misuse- wrong car seat, no seat, wrong seat in vehicle, clearly unrestrained, and vehicle not suitable for children to ride in. And since my four hour class was changed to two hours, it was too late to make a lot of changes. I also didn’t have time to have them fill our a survey either, so I know I would have received better feedback on ways to improve the training. I also needed photos of the gross misuse the law enforcement officers would see to go with the worksheet.

[Resources list for Resources page]
  • NHTSA website
  • Safe Kids Worldwide website
  • Indian Health Services Injury Prevention-SNAP manual
  • CPST manual
  • Safety Restraint Coalition website
  • Washington Child Passenger Safety Program website
  • Washington Traffic Safety Commission website
  • Safe Ride News
  • Native CARS Data:
    • 2009
    • 2011
    • 2013