(NAPSI)—Keeping your kids on the road to safety when in and around a car can be easier if you take these steps:

What You Can Do

First, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), you should look for a car with these vehicle safety features:

• Rear-view cameras
• Interior trunk release
• Side-impact air bags
• Advanced frontal air bags
• Push-down/pull-up window switches
• Automatic door locks.

Next, the NHTSA says, you should always remember to:

1. Use a car seat for every trip—even when you’re just going down the street. Select the car seat based on your child’s age and size, and always follow the manufacturer’s directions. Make sure it’s compatible with your vehicle by checking the car seat manufacturer’s instructions.
2. Keep kids in the backseat at least through age 12.
3. Tell children not to play around vehicles. Before getting into a vehicle, check around and behind it, as well as the surrounding area, to ensure no children are present.
4. Buckle and lock any unused seat belts to keep kids from getting tangled up in them.
5. Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle, no matter how short the stop, or what the weather is, even if the windows are cracked. The car can heat up very quickly in almost all weather conditions. Even with moderate outside temperatures in the mid-60s, a vehicle’s interior can quickly heat up to more than 110° F. In addition, if the ignition is on or the keys are in the ignition, children can accidentally cause the vehicle to roll or even drive away.

What Can Help

To prevent precious cargo from being left in cars, one company has come up with an ingenious Rear Door Alert (RDA) technology. An industry first, the system was developed by two mothers who are also engineers at Nissan. It monitors when the rear door is opened and closed before and after the vehicle is in motion. The system responds with a series of notifications if a rear door was used prior to a trip but was not reopened after the trip. Once the vehicle is in park and the ignition is turned off, the system will first display a notification in the instrument panel and progresses to distinctive chirps of the horn to remind drivers to check the backseat.

Nissan’s RDA is easy to configure and can be temporarily or permanently turned off through a menu in the cluster display.

Already available in the Nissan Pathfinder, for model year 2019, RDA will be standard equipment on eight other Nissan cars, including the best-selling Rogue and the all-new Altima. By model year 2022, it will be standard on all the company’s four-door trucks, sedans and SUVs.

Learn More

For further information, go to www.NissanUSA.com and www.NHTSA.gov.

“To prevent kids from getting left in cars, Nissan has Rear Door Alert that honks its own horn if a rear door was opened before a trip but not reopened after to remind drivers to check the backseat. http://bit.ly/2OQXh9Z”

Editors’ Note: While this article can be of interest to anyone, it may be particularly useful to Californians.