Keeping Kids Safe: Shopping Cart Safety
Information for Parents
Safe-Strap® reminds you to shop safe.
Download the Safe-Strap® shopping cart safety fact sheet with tips on how best to stay safe and prevent injuries while shopping with children.
About Safe-Strap®
Falls from shopping carts are among the leading causes of head injuries to young children. These injuries usually result because parents don’t use the shopping cart restraints.
Falls from the seat portion of the shopping cart account for about half of all fall related injuries, while falls from the basket of the cart are responsible for the remainder. Most fall victims are treated for head injuries. The number of injuries is alarming and is ranked as one of the leading childhood injuries in the United States.
It only takes a second for children to stand up in shopping carts and their chances of falling or tipping the cart over increase. Properly using the shopping cart seat belt helps prevent your child from standing up in the cart.
Children typically fall from shopping carts when they are not properly attended to or restrained. Safe-Strap® would like to remind all parents: do not let children ride in the basket, always buckle up children in the cart seat and stay with them at all times.
Consumer Responsibilities
There are inherent risks associated with shopping carts, as with any other moving object. Consumers and child caregivers by participation accept the risks inherent in such participation, of which the ordinary prudent person is or should be aware. Consumers and child caregivers have a duty to exercise good judgment and act in a responsible manner while using shopping carts and obey all oral or written warnings and instructions, or both, prior to or during participation. Consumers and child caregivers have a duty to properly use all shopping cart restraints and safety equipment provided.
Consumers and child caregivers should note the behavior of their children prior to and during shopping and make a decision whether to place the child in the shopping cart or not.
Prevent Injuries
Do
Don't
Do
- Always use safety belts to restrain children in shopping cart seats, fastening the straps securely around the child’s midsection.
- Stay with your child at all times.
- Inform store personnel of damaged, broken, soiled or missing belt parts.
Don't
- Let your child stand in the shopping cart
- Let another child, even an older one, push or steer the shopping cart
- Let children ride in or on the basket portion of the cart
- Let children climb or hang on the shopping cart