Car seat experts from the Safe Start Infant and Child Health and Safety nonprofit are hitting the road for National Child Passenger Safety Week.

Safe Start founder Liz Montgomery and director of operations Brian Rauscher are on their way to rural communities across North Idaho and farther south to conduct car seat safety checks in towns that may not otherwise have access to those resources.

“Our rural families are underserved," Montgomery said Tuesday. "We’re removing barriers by going into these communities and providing equal access to services that are already in Kootenai County.”

Safe Start conducted more than 1,000 car seat safety checks last year, 338 of which were done for families in Kootenai County.

"If a family comes in and they have an expired car seat, they have a car seat that’s been in a crash, a car seat that doesn’t fit their kiddos, we have brand new car seats," Montgomery said.

In 2022, 98% of the car seats Safe Start gave away went to ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed) families.

“We focus on education and childhood injury prevention," Rauscher said. "We just make sure everybody that leaves here has exactly what they need."

According to data shared by Safe Start, children born into rural communities are five times as likely to be killed in car crashes, more than six times as likely to be using incorrect child restraints or no child restraints at all and child passenger safety misuse rates in rural communities can be as high as 91%.

“We’re very familiar with small towns," said Montgomery, who grew up in St. Maries. "We love them and we want to make sure that their families are served.” 

Rauscher grew up in the small town of Anaconda, Mont. He said Safe Start began its Rural Education Outreach program during National Child Passenger Safety Week, which is annually recognized the third week of September, following 2020 COVID lockdowns. He and Montgomery brought a couple dozen new car seats to Orofino, where three families were waiting when they arrived at the car seat check site a half hour early.

"The first gal pulled up in a 1996 Plymouth Voyager, every single window busted out except the driver window,” Rauscher said.

She was 17, pregnant and on her own, with no clue about car seat safety.

"I said, ‘I don’t care what you drive — your kid is going to be riding in this car seat super safe and you’re going to know how to do it and you’ll be able to put this car seat in any car,'" Rauscher said.

So many people were helped that day that Rauscher's dad in Coeur d'Alene had to deliver more new car seats to the team for the safety event the next day.

Safe Start and its certified child passenger safety technician volunteers are dedicated to ensuring families know how to safely and properly use a car seat to prevent injury while traveling with infants and small children.

"They’re extremely important to us," Montgomery said. "We couldn't serve all these families without our car seat technicians."

She said every family deserves to be educated about child passenger safety and to have the resources. Safe Start is also a Coeur d'Alene-based resource for safe infant sleep information and training.

Visit safestartnw.org for dates and times when the Safe Start Rural Education Outreach team and its mobile safety lab will conduct free car seat safety checks in communities in the region.

Safe Start will also host the Northwest Infant Survival and SIDS Alliance's 2024 Run for the Angels 5K Memorial Run/Walk and Family Day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 13 in Riverstone Park.

    Brian Rauscher, director of operations for Safe Start, is seen Tuesday in the nonprofit's warehouse in Coeur d'Alene. Safe Start's Rural Education Outreach team is traveling throughout North Idaho to conduct free car seat checks for families in small communities.