My Day At Monticello Motor Club - What Car Racing and Child Safety Have in Common

What do car racing and child safety have in common?  More than you might think.  This Sunday, I spent the day at Monticello Motor Club ("MMC"). 
MMC is a premier automotive resort located in Monticello, New York.  While normally, the club caters to its private membership and car racing club, this week they opened up their doors to train parents and nannies in the art of accident avoidance, changing tires and car seat installation.

Our day started with a lecture on basic concepts of car safety - information about how weight is distributed across the tires during acceleration, steady state and braking as well as how conditions like ice and wet roads affect the car's performance.  Next we got to hit the track and practice weaving, high speeds to hard breaking, collision avoidance, and so forth. 

In the afternoon, we took our lesson inside and heard from a fire fighter about car safety.  The most important tip of the day:  If after an accident, it's safe to leave your child in the car seat, you should.  When emergency workers arrive, they will cut the belt or tethers and take the child out of the car in the seat, so they remain confined and stationary.  This can avoid the potential of further injury that removing the child from the car might cause.  On that note, if you are at the scene of any accident and it's safe to leave the victim in the car (i.e. no oncoming traffic, nothing dripping from the car), you should do so.  Removing an injured person from a vehicle can exacerbate their injuries.

Next, we took a look out our cars and car seats.  The seats were checked for proper installation (all tethers and latches attached, no more than 1 inch of play in the seat).  We reviewed current recommendations for infant car seats (keep them rear facing until they are 2 years old if possible).  We also learned how to check our tire pressure and determine what pressure our tires optimally should have (it's inside the driver's side door in case you didn't know).  Some of us (not me of course) were WAY off.  We also checked our spare tires to make sure all equipment was present to replace a tire and to tow the car (my tow hook is missing!) 

In the end, a lot of what we do in a car has to do with instinct and often, our instincts are not right.  Will a couple of hours on a track teach me to overcome some of my bad instincts?  No.  It takes a lot of practice to make these skills second nature.  A program like this starts to help you become aware of what you are doing right and wrong and most importantly, it's a controlled environment where you can learn what you and car car are or are not capable of.  If you have a chance to spend a day at the race track, I highly recommend it.  Not only is it fun, but it actually could make you a safer driver.

In the meanwhile, keep on top of the current safety recommendations for your cars, car seats and for assisting others in distress.  Drive Safe!