Shopping Cart Strap-Up By Don Oldenburg Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 29, 1998; Page D04 In the split second it took Karen Alvarez to reach for bananas at the supermarket, her 18-month-old son, Kyle, stood upright in the shopping cart. He fell out, tipping the 70-pound cart on top of him. "I was shocked that it could have happened so quickly," Alvarez says of the incident 2 1/2 years ago. "It's an accident waiting to happen." Falls from shopping carts are among the leading causes of head injuries to young children, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). It estimates that, since 1985, an annual average of 21,600 children, ages 5 and younger, are treated in emergency rooms for injuries from shopping cart accidents. Two-thirds of them suffer serious head injuries such as concussions and fractures. Despite an estimated 70 percent of U.S. grocery stores that use safety belts in their carts, the number of these injuries is rising. Kyle wasn't seriously injured. But his accident inspired Alvarez to stitch together a padded safety strap for subsequent trips to the supermarket. She later made the straps as shower gifts. Six months ago, the California mother of three founded the Baby Comfort Co. to market her Baby Comfort Strap nationwide -- and lend her voice to the growing chorus of advocates for shopping-cart safety. Part of the problem, says Alvarez, is that shopping carts don't always have straps. When they do, they're often broken, filthy or entangled, so many parents don't bother to use them. "Mine buckles in the back so the child can't undo himself," says Alvarez. "It's padded in the front so it doesn't bind the child. And it prevents the child from leaning forward and teething on the shopping cart handle that's been touched by shoppers who've picked up raw meat and poultry." Estimating that she has sold about 2,000 straps so far, Alvarez says her Baby Comfort Strap is a simple solution. "It didn't take an engineer to come up with what I've done," she says. "I'm a mom." Engineers also are working on it. In this year's National Engineering Design Challenge, high school students nationwide are competing to improve the traditional shopping cart so it won't tip with toddlers aboard or flip when an elderly shopper leans on it. "It's a design that has stuck around for a quite a while and nobody has really taken a look at it," says Mike Peralta, executive director of the Junior Engineering Technical Society, the nonprofit group that sponsors the annual competition. Among the competition's finalists to be judged this Saturday at George Washington University are prototype carts created by students from two local schools. At Lake Braddock Secondary School, in Fairfax County, five seniors built an elongated hexagon-shaped cart made mostly of Plexiglas, with six wheels, and a toddler seat featuring a belt and lap bar. "It's a sturdier model that won't tip over," says the school's Gifted & Talented physics teacher Barbara Wilson, who oversaw the project. Twelve students at the Maret School, in the District, worked after school and weekends to construct a prototype from PVC pipe and masonite board. Its pressure-point handle brake provides more stability for elderly shoppers. And the widened wheel base and lower center of gravity make it tip-proof, says Maret physics teacher Jennifer Groppe, adding that the child seat self-adjusts to the child's waist. To alert parents about the shopping cart accidents, the CPSC spearheaded a safety program last May that posted "Buckle Up, Protect Your Child" reminders in 1,300 supermarkets and offered safety straps for a dollar each to grocery stores. "We have to make sure parents know it is their responsibility," says Karen Alvarez. "That means educating them and equipping them." The Baby Comfort Co., 925-833-8287; on the Web at http://babycomfort.com   Got a consumer complaint? E-mail details to oldenburgd@washpost.com or write Don Oldenburg, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW 20071.   © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company