Every February, one week is designated as National Child Passenger Safety Week in an effort to increase public awareness of safety practices to employ when transporting children. This is an especially important topic, since motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for children aged 1 to 5 in the United States. It is estimated that each year, 600-700 children in that age range are killed, and another 80,000 are injured. In 1997, 2087 children aged 0 – 15 died in car crashes, and another 330,000 were injured.
The number of deaths and injuries to children from traffic accidents can be reduced by practicing three safety measures. First, all children should ride in the rear seat of the vehicle. Infants must be placed in rear-facing child safety seats in the back seat. When the infant is large enough to face forward, he or she still needs to be restrained in a child safety seat in the rear of the car. In fact, all children should ride in the rear seat until they are at least 5 feet tall.
While children are safer in general when riding in the back seat, there is another reason not to allow them to ride in front. Air bags, while credited with saving hundreds of adult lives each year, are not designed to protect small bodies. Children and infants riding in the front seat can be seriously injured or killed when an air bad is deployed. Even low-speed crashes involving air bag deployment have resulted in death for children that otherwise would have been expected to survive the crash; this is because when an air bag comes out, it does so at a rate up to 200 miles per hour. The force necessary to deploy the bag so quickly can hurt and even crush a small body whether it is restrained in a child safety seat or not.
The second measure adults need to practice to ensure the safety of children in vehicles is to use child safety seats. Even though there are laws throughout America that require the use of safety seats for children, about 56% of the children killed in crashes in 1995 were unrestrained. Statistics also show that in 1997, more than ½ of the children killed in automobile accidents were completely unrestrained, and of those who were restrained, 29% were not in age and size appropriate safety seats—rather, they were buckled in an adult seat belt. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, research has shown that with proper usage, child safety seats reduce the fatality rate by 69% for infants under 1 year of age, and by 47% for toddlers from ages 1 – 4 years old.
Unfortunately, as many as ¾ of child safety seats are not effectively protecting children because they are misused. Common problems include not using a locking clip and or chest clip where needed and not using the harness straps properly. In addition, compatibility problems may make it impossible to properly install a child safety seat. Not all safety seats fit all cars. It is important to check both the vehicle’s manual and the instructions provided with the safety seat for information on the proper installation. And when the child outgrows the infant seat, a booster seat is necessary until the child is about 4 years old, because the lap and shoulder belts installed in the vehicle do not fit properly.
Finally, when a child is large enough to stop using the booster seat and start using the safety belts installed in the car, they must always buckle up with properly adjusted lap and shoulder belts every time they travel in a car. (This means that the lap belt stays low and snug across the hips without riding up over the stomach, and the shoulder belt does not cross the face or front of the neck.) In fact, all three safety measures are necessary with every trip in a motor vehicle; remember, most car crashes occur within 25 miles of home.
Every time a life is lost in a motor vehicle accident, it is a tragedy. But the loss of a young, innocent life seems even more tragic. Children, especially very young ones, depend on the adults in their lives to keep them safe. Employing these safety measures every time a child is transported will reduce the rate of death and disability among children.