Much has been accomplished in recent years to improve the safety of children traveling in passenger vehicles. Observed child restraint usage rates for infants and toddlers are at record high levels while fatalities have declined substantially. Booster seat use is increasing and states are passing laws requiring proper restraint use by older children. The LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) uniform child restraint attachment system is helping to address misuse and compatibility problems. The vast majority of young children now ride in rear seats. A cadre of more than 30,000 trained child passenger safety (CPS) technicians assists parents and caregivers in properly restraining children. This progress cannot be attributed to any single factor, but rather to the combined efforts of government, child passenger safety advocates, public and private sector safety organizations, as well as the automotive, child restraint, and insurance industries. Despite these significant accomplishments, large numbers of children in some populations continue to ride unrestrained. Premature graduation of infants into forward-facing child restraints and toddlers into safety belts is commonplace. Each new day brings first-time parents who need to be educated about the importance of properly restraining their children. Safety belt use among older children (approximately 8 years of age and older) — who have outgrown booster seats but are not yet licensed drivers — is abysmally low. The result is that children are still being killed and injured in traffic crashes. During 2001, a daily average of six children (0-14 years old) were killed in crashes and an additional 732 were injured, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Current best practices for children riding in motor vehicles are: • Infants should be in a rear-facing safety seat until they have reached at least one year of age and weigh at least 20 pounds (in a safety seat that accommodates higher rear-facing weights, the child should remain rear-facing until reaching the maximum weight/height for the safety seat); • Children older than one year, who are between 20 and 40 pounds, should be in a forward-facing safety seat; • Children who have exceeded the height or weight limit for their forward-facing safety seat, and are less than 4’9” tall, should be in a booster seat until the safety belt fits correctly; • Children should be in a properly adjusted safety belt when the shoulder belt can be positioned across the chest with the lap belt low and snug across the thighs; and • Children age 12 and under should ride in the rear seat. Over the past decade, several panels and conferences were convened to develop specific recommendations to guide public child passenger safety policies. In 1995 the Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Restraint & Vehicle Compatibility announced recommendations, which would eventually lead to the LATCH system, in addition to improved training programs and coordination among entities involved in child passenger safety. To increase the use of appropriate restraints for children ages 4 through 15, the Blue Ribbon Panel II: Protecting Our Older Child Passengers was convened in 1999. The recommendations from this panel helped improve the availability and use of booster seats for children. In 2001, the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) sponsored a conference to promote scientifically sound public policy on booster seats. The resulting recommendations have served as a guide for child restraint system research. The 2003 Child Passenger Safety Summit was convened to address CPS policy in a broader context. The panel developed recommendations based on the most recent crash, injury, and exposure data as well as existing and predicted products, resources, and funding capacities. Policy recommendations are directed toward government and industry as well as safety and research organizations. They address research, education and training, legislation, and recognize the important issue of safe transportation for children having special needs. (Author/publisher)
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