Toyota Engineer Focuses On Importance Of Car Seat Safety

Dec 11, 2015

For the past three years, Toyota Technical Center (TTC) employee Jennifer Pelky has been working to promote proper car seat safety through her position as a certified child passenger safety technician. Through this position, she has made it her mission to inform new parents about the importance of choosing the right car seat and how to properly instal the seat in their vehicle. As such, she provides demonstrations at local retailers, community events, and fire stations. Beginning in 2014, Jennifer also became a spokesperson for Toyota’s Buckle Up For Life.

“As a parent I value the safety of my children above everything else and I see a lot of parents who don’t know they’re doing it wrong, but they’re making an effort and that is great,” says Pelky. “And I know that when they leave, they’re safer than when they came in. That, to me, is huge.”

Jennifer first became inspired to pursue this line of engineering back in 2011 when she experienced her own car seat struggles. At the time, she was pregnant with her first child and had just purchased a new car seat from Babies “R” Us. With a degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, and several years of experience in the automotive industry, she figured that installing the seat would be no problem. The task proved to be much more difficult, however, and it took several failed attempts and the help of a co-worker to get it installed properly. Afterwards, she realized that if it was this difficult for her then it must be much worse for the average parent.

Car seat safety is an especially important issue in today’s society as an improperly installed car seat can be detrimental to any child that is involved in a vehicle accident. The U.S. Department of Transportation reported that in 2012 there were 1,168 children under the age of 14 killed in traffic accidents and other 169,000 were injured. Visit http://buckleupforlife.org/ to learn more.

“Subtly Saving Lives.” Toyota USA Newsroom. N.p., 9 Dec. 2015. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fpressroom.toyota.com%2Freleases%2Fttc%2Bpelky%2Bprofile.htm>.