A charity doing children's car seat checks around the country says it's astounded by the number of seats incorrectly installed.
Cheeks in Seats, which provides education on kids' car seats, has discovered around 80 to 90 per cent of seats are not properly installed.
Claire McGowan, a registered Child Restraint technician with Cheeks in Seats, says more needs to be done to educate parents.
"It's life or death. There's only one chance - you've got one chance. If you have a crash, that's it," Ms McGowan told 1 NEWS.
Under New Zealand law, children should be in an approved restraint up to seven years old.
In the last 12 months, 13 children under the age of 14 have been killed on our roads - one of the worst statistics in the OECD.
Another 200 children have been injured.
It's not known how many children weren't properly restrained.
Ms McGowan says some parents can become quite upset "thinking that they've done all this wrong for so long".
"Part of our job is making them feel like you've done the best that you could. Now you know better so you'll do better, but if no one has told them, then how do they know?"
Inspector Jan Craig, the Wellington Road Policing Manager, says educating people on car seat safety can be a tough job.
"It is really frustrating, and we are constantly trying to keep educating people 'cause we want that message to get in," Inspector Craig said.
Carloads of families have been lined up around the block in Wellington to get their car seats checked today, and organisers predict they've seen around 500 families today alone.
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