Child Passenger Safety Tips

Child safety seats and seat belts are essential for protecting your children in case of a car accident. To be effective, these child passenger safety devices must be used properly. As a driver, you are responsible for child passenger safety, and we can help you understand how to keep kids safe while driving. Fact:

On average, seven children age 14 and under are killed in traffic accidents each day. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

Research conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that when a driver is unbuckled, children in the same car are properly restrained less than 25 percent of the time. Non-use of seat belts is a conscious - and life-threatening - decision thousands of adult drivers and passengers make. Unfortunately, children often are the unwitting victims of this behavior.

We conducted a recent survey of 423 grade school children and found that 67 percent of children surveyed said they learn driving safety "from a parent." However, only 47 percent of children surveyed said that the first thing their parents do when they get into a car is put on a seat belt.

Seat belt tips for child passenger safety: · All children age 12 and under should be buckled up in the rear seat of the vehicle. · Children should ride in an appropriate child safety seat until 8 years of age, unless they are 4 feet 9 inches tall and weigh 80 pounds. · Holding a child in your lap provides no additional safety. An unrestrained 10-pound infant would instantly be ripped from an adult's arms in a 30-mph collision. · Don't place a single seat belt over yourself and a child. In a front-end collision, the child could be crushed by your body. · A seat belt must be adjusted to the size of a child. As with adults, the lap belt should cross the child's upper thighs and the diagonal belt should cross the upper chest and a point between the neck and the center of the shoulder. · Children should continue to use a belt-positioning booster until the lap and shoulder belts fit properly and the child's legs are long enough to bend at the edge of the seat.

Child passenger safety facts: · Safety education is working. Car accident fatalities for children under five dropped from 706 in 2000 to 668 in 2001. The number of fatalities for children ages five to 15 dropped from 2,105 to 1,990 in 2001. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) · Child safety seats save lives. Correct use of a child safety seat can reduce the risk of accident-related injuries and deaths by more than 70 percent. (Source: NHTSA) · Seat belts can ensure child passenger safety. Six out of 10 children who die in passenger vehicle crashes are unbelted. (Source: NHTSA)