Nissan Starts Child Safety Campaign in Cali

As the push for increased safety on the American roads intensifies, the number of programs and project focused on the safety of the traffic participants is increasing exponentially. These days, the focus of the agencies and even of some car manufacturers in the increase in use of child seats and boosters was seen as the main reason, for instance, why 425 children under the age of five managed to escape with their lives from car crashes last year.

Trying to lend a hand to the local authorities in enforcing and presenting the benefits the use of child seats and booster has, Japanese automaker Nissan announced it has partnered with the Koreatown Youth and Community Center and the California Highway Patrol for a sustained pro-booster campaign.

Titled Quest for Safety, the campaign will, as it did every year since 1998, inform and educate parents and caregivers about child car seat safety and the proper installation and use of child safety seats and booster seats. The campaign will be visible through seminars, workshops, media events and strategic communications campaigns.

The program focuses on booster seats this year after a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 72 percent of some 3,500 observed car and booster seats were misused.

"Ensuring that children are properly secured in a correct-fitting car seat is one of the most important things that parents can do to protect their children in a vehicle," said Robert Yakushi, director of Nissan's Product Safety and Environmental. "Our goal with the Quest for Safety program is to work with community leaders, law enforcement and the media to educate as many parents and caregivers as possible with this message -- regardless of the language that they speak."