Many parents don't install child car seats correctly because the instructions are too confusing and too technical, Toronto police say.

"That tends to be the biggest complaint: trying to read through all those pages of the manual and figure out something that should be so simple," said Const. Stephen Burns of Toronto Police Traffic Services.

Toronto parent Haimchan Katwaroo recalls trying to install a car seat for his son, Sanjay.

"It was just very confusing. We actually didn't follow it," Katwaroo said.

"We tried it ourselves and then just went to the Toyota dealership. A couple mechanics there came together – the mechanics had children – and they helped show us what we had to do."

For parents who do manage to wade through pages of instruction, there are still unknowns.

When Bob Vavaroutsos put an infant seat in his vehicle, he went one step further and got Toronto police to check the installation.

Even then, Vavaroutsos missed a few safety points that were buried deep in the instructions. For instance, he didn't know that the seat had to be replaced if the car was ever in an accident, or that car seats have expiry dates.

"Transport Canada says we shouldn't use the car seats any more than 10 years" because extreme temperatures can weaken the plastic, Burns said.

The most common problem with car-seat installation is the lack of a tether strap in forward-facing seats, police say.

Clarify instructions, manufacturers asked

Police are trying to pressure manufacturers to improve the instructions. Transport Canada says one Canadian car seat company is in the process of rewriting its manuals.

Some police departments are taking other steps to reduce the confusion. In Brampton, Ont., for instance, Fire and Emergency officials have created a DVD to explain the installation process.

According to Transport Canada, 10,000 children under the age of 12 are injured in traffic accidents in Canada every year. Car seats can reduce the chance of injury by up to 75 per cent.