Several Lansing vehicle dealerships will be inspecting child safety seats for free next week to help keep children secure during vehicle crashes - the No. 1 cause of death for U.S. children.

The inspections are part of National Child Passenger Safety Week, which begins Monday.

In Michigan, 14 children under the age of four died in crashes in 1999.

Pat Eliason, a passenger safety programs coordinator for Michigan’s Office of Highway Safety Planning, said that at least six of those children should have been in child safety seats, but were not.

“By law, they have to be in a car seat until they’re four,” she said. “The recommendation is that they stay in a car seat until they weigh 80 pounds.”

In March, the state law was enacted, replacing a law that allowed children older than the age of one to ride in the back seat wearing a safety belt. However, Eliason said that’s not good enough.

Heather Festerling, a child passenger safety specialist for the Michigan Department of Community Health, said the department will be inspecting child safety seats for free from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Feb. 15, at Glenn Buege Buick, 3625 S. Pennsylvania Ave. in Lansing.

Festerling said her department does about 1,000 inspections a year and finds many of the seats misused.

“The most common thing is probably the seat is not tight enough in the car,” she said.

She highly recommends parents get their seat inspected as well as read the seat instructions and the vehicle owner’s manual.

Ronald Leist of Premier Chrysler Jeep, 6525 W. Saginaw Hwy. in Lansing, inspects seats any time by appointment.

He has done 44 child safety seat inspections since May.

When a customer comes in to have their seat inspected, Leist goes through two pages of forms as part of the inspection - making sure it’s installed correctly, that there are no recalls on the seat and that the child is the proper size for the seat.

“The object of it is to make sure that children are safe,” he said. “Eighty percent of all child seats are basically misused.”

He said parents should “find out if it’s ever been in a crash before - the seat may look fine, but you don’t know what kind of impact the crash has had on it. If you’ve had the seat six, seven years, you probably should consider replacing it.”