National Seat Check Saturday – September 26, 2026

History of National Seat Check Saturday

The National Safety Council in the U.S. developed the National Child Passenger Safety Certification Training Program. This is a training program essential for the certification of child passenger safety technicians and instructors who assist caregivers in the safe transportation of their children. The program aims to tackle three of the most common risks that child passengers can face; those being — improperly used or installed safety seats, overheated cars, and teen drivers.

Child passenger safety initiative dates back to the mid-1990s when NHTSA or The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gathered a small team of child passenger safety professionals called the Patterns for Life Team to investigate the protocols and state of child passenger safety in the U.S. After their research, the Patterns for Life Team came up with a nationwide standardized curriculum and a national certification process for technicians and instructors.

Just a standardized curriculum couldn’t accomplish much. They still needed the practical input of people from the field. Another group was formed with representatives from car seat manufacturers, injury prevention officers, and national and local organizations. After this group was established, the National Child Passenger Safety Board was born in 1993.
In 1998, the first standardized safety certification curriculum was published. The National Child Passenger Safety Board is presently in charge of overseeing the curriculum and makes recommendations accordingly.

There have been other initiatives as well to better child safety protocols. A publishing company in the U.S. called Safe Ride News focuses on publishing educational materials for child passenger safety. In 2008, they also published a 44-year timeline of child passenger safety developments — covering a protest in 1965 by physicians demanding automotive safety to the alterations made in school bus seating standards.