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Parents count on car seats in order to help keep their children safe in the event of a motor vehicle collision. Unfortunately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that there were more than six million car seats that had to be recalled in 2014 as a result of a safety defect.

Defects can make car seats less effective, causing or contributing to injuries and fatalities among children. Ideally, manufacturers will identify defects before anyone is harmed and will be able to notify parents so the car seats can be removed from the road and repaired or replaced. Unfortunately, NHTSA data shows that fewer than half of the six million car seats recalled last year actually received the necessary repairs.

When a defective car seat causes your child to get hurt, Ft. Myers personal injury attorneys like Randall Spivey can provide you with assistance in pursuing a product defect claim against the manufacturer. Preventing injuries in the first place is strongly preferred to reacting after the fact, of course, which is why NHTSA has offered a list of tips that parents should follow in order to reduce the chances their child will be hurt or killed because of a problem with a child safety seat.

Tips for Preventing Injuries from Defective Car Seats

NHTSA's tips for preventing injuries and fatalities from defective car seats include the following:

• Make sure that your vehicle has been registered at Safer Car.gov, and/or that the vehicle has been registered with the manufacturer of the car seat. Car seats must be registered by model number and date since sometimes only certain seats turn out to be defective. This information can be found on the label of the seat. You can also fill in the registration card and manually mail it to the car seat manufacturer if you do not want to complete your registration online. The date and model information is available on the registration card already, and the card is postage-paid so no stamp is necessary.

• Check regularly for recalls. The NHTSA website has a database that you can enter your seat's model and brand information into in order to determine if it has been subject to a recall.

The reason so many parents do not hear about car seat recalls is because they never properly register their car seat. If you do not send in the registration card or take one of the other steps to provide your manufacturer with your contact information, the manufacturer may be unable to get in touch with you to alert you when there is a problem.

The difficulty in getting car seats effectively recalled is one important reason why manufacturers should always make sure they do ample testing before a product is released. If a product is dangerous and ends up being sold anyway, the manufacturer can and should be held accountable for any harm that results directly from the problem with the product.

Our personal injury attorneys represent clients in lawsuits against product manufacturers so victims who are injured or whose children are injured, can make product manufacturers pay for the damage they've caused. Contact the Spivey Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.A. for help if you suspect a problem with a car seat resulted in your child suffering more severe injuries or suffering fatal injuries after a crash.