The National Transportation Safety Board has created a short video on Child Passenger Safety.  The video, released in December 2010 in conjunction with the Board’s Child Passenger Safety in the Air and in Automobiles Forum, is an educational tool for parents and caregivers covering child passenger safety issues in aviation and in automobiles.

"The video showcases our staff and gets a very important safety message to our target audience without requiring them to read an NTSB report or search our recommendations database,” said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman.

Scene One - Aviation

A couple with their infant listens to the standard safety briefing.  During the briefing the flight attendant highlights the dangers of flying with a child on a parent’s lap.

Scene Two - Highway

The second segment features a mother in her car with her two small children with a GPS that talks back to her after giving directions: it issues a warning that the child in the child seat may not be secured properly and that the child in the seat belt belongs in a booster seat.

The Message

The video concludes with the two sets of parents doing the right thing – taking a seat on the airplane for the infant where she can be secured in her own safety seat and buying a booster seat for the young child to be used in the family car. 

“The concept is that parents and caregivers often are on “autopilot” when they board a plane or drive in the family car with their children, without conscious thought to the safety consequences of improperly secured children,” Hersman said. 

The Actors, The Locations

The video features in-depth interviews with NTSB investigators Nora Marshall and Dennis Collins about their experiences on-scene at accident sites where children are involved.    

In addition, several NTSB employees were involved in the shooting of the videos which took place during the fall of 2010 at National Airport and in Alexandria, Virginia.  Safety Advocate Stephanie Davis and her three-month-old daughter Sophia, Video Production Specialist Antion Downs, Office of Communications Deputy Director Sharon Bryson, and Public Affairs Officer Bridget Serchak recreated a scenario on board a Continental 737.

Credits

Producers, PCI Communications, Inc., Reagan National Airport and Continental Airlines.

The video is also being translated into Spanish.