Buffalo Car Seat Club spreads the word to keep kids safe

Bringing a child home can be a daunting task. One of the first things on that to-do list is usually putting in a car seat, and doing it correctly. But almost half of all car seats in the U.S aren’t installed correctly, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Lia Tuso is trying to change that.

“Ok, ready Santino? Let’s play,” Tuso said, talking to her energetic 2-year-old.

They say you learn from doing. For Tuso, it was doing it wrong.

“A lot of people don't know how to install a car seat until they need to,” she said.

She bought the most expensive car seat, read the manual and even had her husband and sister check it.

“It was still wrong with three eyes on it,” she explained.

She realized her mistakes were the same ones friends and family were making.

“My thought was double the secure, double the safe," she recalled. "In fact, that's not correct."

That's why she started Buffalo Car Seat Club.

“We just want to give them the information ahead of time,” Tuso said. “I'm on social media and I'm out trying to get in front of the caregivers, but [...] the organization acts as a liaison between the different resources.”

She and two other car-seat technicians, who are also moms, are trying to get car seats to those who need them, while educating them.

That brought Spectrum News 1 reporter Viktoria Hallikäär to issue herself a challenge: try to install a car seat for the first time, with no instruction manual.

The end result, after a lot of struggle, she still did it wrong. It’s exactly for these situations that Tuso does what she does.

“We help caregivers on social media every day, and so usually every day I'm receiving four to five emails with questions [in] Instagram messages, Facebook messages," she said. " So I I've had to stop counting.”

She's reminding people to get rear facing seats for small kids, install them correctly, and be in it for the long haul.

“The adult seat belt doesn't start to fit children until 10, 11, 12 years of age," Tuso explained. " So that's one big thing that I like to tell caregivers. This is a marathon not a sprint.”

She recently hit the one year mark of her own child passenger safety technicians license, with no plans of slowing down.

“Sometimes I look at my husband, I'm like, why am I doing this," Tuso laughed. "I don't get paid for it. This is all volunteer, but it brings me so much joy to know that I'm helping other children and really I'm helping other caregivers who are in the position that I was in.”

Anyone looking to donate, help out, or check out some tips can find the Buffalo Car Seat Club on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that almost half of all car seats in the U.S. are NOT installed correctly. Have you ever had any issues?