Several people have asked me why I chose to work with local news instead of choosing another, less public route, to resolve our concerns over Advantage Rent-A-Car's child safety seats. My reasons are as much personal as pragmatic. While I'm not particularly thrilled with the idea of airing someone else's dirty laundry in public, I'm pleased with the end result: Advantage's San Diego office has destroyed their dilapidated and hazardous car seats and they've instituted a strong corporate policy governing car seats across all of their 150+ offices.
Several personal events influenced my response. Two summers ago, my son's palms were blistered with severe 1st and 2nd degree burns when he touched a shiny metal storefront on a hot day (so shiny and just his height). His pain was so extreme that he was given a morphine-like drug in the emergency room. The store manager told me that the injury wasn't something they considered important and it was doubtful that they would do anything to prevent it from happening again. Seven months pregnant and exhausted, I focused on controlling my son's pain, keeping his hands bandaged, and helping him heal as best I could. I tried repeatedly to reach someone at the company's corporate office to plead my case for addressing the issue, but I couldn't even get connected to the right person. To date, the storefront remains unchanged; no one has even bothered to put up a sign to warn parents of the danger. To this day, I feel guilty about not doing more.
In August of this year, my son was burned again in a Cole Haan store (an upscale shoe store owned by Nike) when he reached up to touch an exposed halogen light fixture at his height (but invisible to me). The burn was bad enough to blister, and he screamed uncontrollably while I yelled for help. The store manager surfaced about 15 minutes later and apologized, but stated "we can't fix that, it's the same in all the stores." After weeks of phone calls and email, I finally received email from the corporate office stating that they are "evaluating… (the lights) to make sure they are installed, maintained and operating as per the recommendations of the manufacturer." My attempts to follow up further were met with no response. The design remains unchanged to this day. Once again, I'd been brushed off, and once again, I felt powerless to solve the problem.
On top of that, add the slew of toy recalls this past year. It just feels like most companies don't care, even when there are laws in place, and fail to use good judgement otherwise. I've struggled with balancing my personal responsibility to keep my kids safe and the public need to holding companies accountable for the hazards they create.
While my kids weren't injured by Advantage Rent-A-Car's unsafe car seats, I promised myself that I wouldn't let this one slide. I can't bear the thought of what could happen if a child seated in one of those faulty seats was involved in an accident. The Advantage employees and office manager I talked with were so cavalier that I knew nothing would happen unless I took further action. This time, I thought I'd try something different. First, I documented the problem on my blog. My hope was that whenever anyone googled for "advantage rental car seat" that my article would show up, alerting parents to the issue. As of this writing, my article is the 1st search result for that search! Second, I reached out to other bloggers and news sites to spread the word. Worst case, I reasoned, was that if all this was as ineffective as my past efforts, at least the information would be "out there" for others to find.
10News in San Diego was the first to respond, and I'm truly glad that I worked with them. Felicia Kit, the producer and Lauren Reynolds at 10 News were great. They were professional, thorough, and careful. They did a lot more than I ever could have (or would have thought to do). They got the California Highway Patrol to take a look. They swabbed the seats for bacteria. They went through many of the seats knowing what to look for. They contacted ABC's Seattle affiliate and had them look for similar issues in Seattle. The 10News team thoroughly researched the problems and then sat down with the local branch manager to discuss what she had found. With all that information (and the weight of ABC News) behind her, she wasn't as easy to blow off as I had been. She also contacted the corporate offices before the story aired and gave them a chance to respond. The San Diego branch manager of Advantage Rent-A-Car promised her that he would clean up the car seat situation that very day. Advantage's corporate office responded by creating a new (and strong) corporate policy regarding car seat safety.
It remains to be seen whether Advantage's local branch offices will follow their new corporate policy over the coming years, but unlike past attempts, I feel like I've had a positive effect!
Filed Under:
car-seat
carseat
3 comments |
Posted on February 10, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
With lots of people headed to sunny destinations and doing some early planning for summer holidays, we had lots of visitors in January. Here's what people were reading:
Top Articles
Top City Guides
0 comments |
Posted on February 9, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
We got a great write up today on
Consumerist. Consumerist is a popular blog focused on helping consumers share complaints (and good experiences) that would normally be silenced or shared among just a few close friends. I've been a reader for a long time, so it felt great to get the rental car seat story on their site today (along with my tips for working with the news to resolve your consumer complaint). Here's a link to the story Mother's Blog Spawns Investigation Into Unsafe Car Seats
Consumerist Readers, here are stories related to our experience at Advantage
Watching Myself on the News
Car Seats and Air Travel
Advantage Rent-A-Car's Frightening Car Seats
Video: 10 News Investigation of Advantage Rent-A-Car
Here are some of the other useful links and resources on DeliciousBaby.
Filed Under:
car-seat
carseat
0 comments |
Posted on February 8, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
Eileen Ogintz has a great article about taking older kids to Barcelona: Arts, culture, and paella in Barcelona. We agree, Barcelona is a fantastic city for kids. If you want more resources, check out our guide to Barcelona with Kids (pictured: Barcelona beach)
Our friends at Family Hack have a great roundup of ideas and products for educating your kids while you're on a road trip. Classroom To-Go: Brain Builders for Kids on the Road
Over at
Weelife , there is a series of articles about a recent trip to Cuba with a toddler in tow. Our favorites are
Food and Cuba and Simple Sand Art
Follow the Grieve family on their 10-month sailing trip around the Caribbean and across the Atlantic. The website has weekly updates and lots of pictures.
This week, the family is on the
Carribian Island of Montserrat
Check out an Australian mom's recent trip to San Francisco (complete with inspiring photos) at RoamingAussieMum. Feeling inspired? Check out recommendations from our recent trip at San Francisco with Kids
Rick Steves has re-introduced
family tours that can include kids as young as eight. There are two tours, one that focuses on Paris & France and another that covers more of Europe (begins in Rome & ends in Paris)
0 comments |
Posted on February 8, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
Our very first international trip with baby E was a one month "sabbatical" in Paris. I just couldn't bear to let E's first Halloween slip by without dressing him up, and brought this bumble bee costume from home. It turns out that the French are traditionalists when it comes to costumes… witches and goblins only… so nobody quite understood why we were carting our son around town in a bumble bee outfit. Still, he was fawned over by so many French grandmas that day that we wished we'd dressed him up every day!
Related Links:
Paris Family Travel Guide,
0 comments |
Posted on February 7, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
If you need a car seat at your destination, there are several alternatives. Here are some helpful tips for ensuring that you have a safe, clean, car seat when you need it.
-
Bring your own car seat. Not only do you know that it's safe, but you also know how to install and use it. Next week, I'll have a roundup of different products designed to make traveling with a child safety seat easier.
-
Carry your seat onboard the plane if possible. This avoids having it damaged or lost in checked baggage.
-
Consider keeping a car seat in locations you visit often (like grandma's house). It's cheaper than a rental, and you'll know exactly what you have.
-
Rent from a baby gear rental company instead of the car rental agency. Their business is built on providing safe, clean rentals. Many will meet you at the airport with a car seat.
If you rent a car seat:
Last night I had the unusual experience of watching myself on the evening news. It was fun to see myself and the kids on TV, and it was also very emotional.
First of all I feel incredibly proud. Because of the article I wrote and my work with 10News in San Diego, Advantage has destroyed all of their old and/or unsafe car seats. They've also instituted a new policy to inspect car seats after every use, to provide product manuals, and have pledged to remove car seats from use after just two years of service (the recommended maximum lifespan of a car seat is five years). What a fantastic response! It remains to be seen whether this is lip service or a real commitment, but if they follow thru, it's a huge improvement and every parent who rents a car seat from them in the future is better off.
Working with the folks (and specifically Felicia Kit) at 10News in San Diego was a joy, they were professional, responsive, and kept me in the loop as the story unfolded. I'll be blogging more about the twists and turns later this week, but during the month since I first started working with them, I woke up every day thinking "I wonder what will happen today." Some days, it was difficult not to shout from the rooftops about all the great progress that was being made on the story, so it feels great to finally be able to talk and blog about it. Their story was engaging, informative, and balanced and a reward to watch. While I'm proud of the story I wrote to start this investigation, I learned a lot watching professional reporters do what they're trained to do.
On the other hand, watching the KOMO story was disappointing, I'm so intimate with all the details that I was upset about some of the factual errors in their story. The broadcast claims that we rented the worst and oldest car seat on the lot (the Fisher Price car seat manufactured in 1990 that was pictured on my blog). We didn't. Somehow, this error was particularly upsetting, I think because it slighted my judgment as a mother to the benefit of building a more sensational story. It took us a long time to shuffle thru all the car seats they had, but we did manage to find two seats that we felt were in good shape before driving off.
I'll be posting more this week on exactly how the news stories happened. I truly hope that more parents will be inspired to take action when they see unsafe practices like this!
Related Links:
10 News Investigations: Bad Car Seats
Advantage Rent A Car's Frightening Car Seats
Filed Under:
car-seat
carseat
4 comments |
Posted on February 6, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
KOMO News (Seattle's ABC affiliate) has now posted a preview for their story on unsafe Child Safety Seats in Rental Cars. Click the link below to check it out. My favorite quote: "Problem solver Liz Rocca uncovers car seats so old and damaged they should be destroyed."
KOMO News: Dirty and Dangerous
Here's KOMO's Schedule:
4 Feb Komo News in Seattle airs the story at 11pm PST
5 Feb Komo News in Seattle airs the story at 6pm PST
1 comment |
Posted on February 3, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
Back in December, I blogged about the disgusting and unsafe child seats at Advantage rent-a-car. The local San Diego and Seattle ABC affiliates picked up the story, did their own "under cover" investigations, and are airing the story this week!
A reporter even came out to the house to interview me and take video of the kids. I've held off on blogging about how the story unfolded until it airs, so watch the report at 10News or KOMO and check back here next week for the behind-the-scenes story.
Schedule
3 Feb 10 News in San Diego breaks the story at 11pm PST
4 Feb Komo News in Seattle airs the story at 11pm PST
5 Feb Komo News in Seattle airs the story at 6pm PST
Here are a couple teasers from the San Diego affiliate:
Video Teaser
"Behind the Scenes" Investigation Blog
My original article
Advantage Rent-A-Car's Frightening Car Seats
[where: 98122]
Filed Under:
car-seat
carseat
0 comments |
Posted on February 2, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
Mighty Girl has an instructional post on Tips for Quick Airport Security Screening with a Baby Don't forget to check out the helpful comments. Need more help? Check out our Tips for Flying with Kids
I just discovered TravelingWithElliot.com a great blog with travel stories and fun pictures to inspire you. Destinatinos include: Amsterdam, Brussles, Cozumel, San Diego, Israel, Paris, Buenos Aries, Montevideo, Austin
FourGoRTW Is another fun family travel blog. Read along as the Edmeads family travels with their two kids (Ages 4 and 7) around the world for one year.
CNN.com has a fun article about a family trip to Yellowstone during winter (pictured). This is something I've always wanted to do, and it was inspiring to read someone else's story.
1 comment |
Posted on February 1, 2008 |
Save to del.icio.us
