Most Wanted

Transportation Safety

Improvements

State Issues

 

Improve Child Occupant Protection

 

Importance

 

Children deserve the highest level of safety in all modes of transportation.

From 1996 through 2005, more than 3,800 child occupants between the ages of 4 and 8 died in traffic crashes.

• About 50 percent of those 3,800 children were unrestrained.  Of those restrained, most were improperly restrained in a seat belt that was designed for adults, rather than in a child safety seat or booster seat.

• According to Partners for Child Passenger Safety (1), while abdominal injuries are relatively rare, children restrained in seat belts are 3.5 times more likely to suffer an abdominal injury compared to optimally restrained children.  In that study, there were no reported abdominal injuries among children 4 to 8 years old who were restrained in booster seats.

 

In 2005, 347 children between the ages of 4 and 8 died as passengers in motor vehicles.  This is down from 415 in 1996.

 

Safety Recommendation

H-96-14 (the States, the District of Columbia, and the Territories)
Issued October 26, 1996
Added to the Most Wanted list:  1997
Status:  Various
Review existing laws and enact legislation, if needed, that would ensure that children up to 8 years old are required by the State’s mandatory child restraint use law to use child restraint systems and booster seats.  (Source:  1996 Safety Study on the Performance and Use of Child Restraint Systems, Seat Belts, and Air Bags for Children in Passenger Vehicles [NTSB/SS-96-01])

 

Summary of Action

Thirty-eight States and the District of Columbia require use of booster seats, although only 17 States (HI, IL, IN, KS, ME, MO, NJ, NC, OR, PA, TN, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, and WY) and the District of Columbia require their use through age 7, as the Board recommended. 

 

In 2007, at least 17 States (AZ, CA, FL, ID, KY, MA, MI, MN, MS, MT, NE, NC, NJ, OH, SD, TX, and UT) considered legislative proposals to improve their child passenger safety law in accordance with the Board’s recommendation.  Two States (OR and VA) upgraded their existing child restraint laws to fully implement this recommendation.

 

Actions Remaining

Thirty-three States, American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands lack laws requiring that children between the ages of 4 and 8 use booster seats.

 

September 2007

 

---

1 A special cooperative program between The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Companies to study child occupant protection.