Child and Youth Transportation Safety

​​​​​​​​​​​​​The NTSB promotes child occupant safety in all modes of transportation with a focus on educating parents and caregivers about ways to keep children safe when traveling. We continue to push for adoption of our recommendations concerning child occupant safety, such as:

      • ​​​Requiring separate seats and restraints for all airplane occupants, and requiring children younger than 2 to be restrained by an appropriate child restraint system during air travel
  • Ensuring that children up to 8 years old are required to use child restraint systems and booster seats when traveling in passenger vehicles
  • Enact strong graduated licensing laws and enforce them, including restrictions on numbers of passengers
  • Implementing boating safety standards to include mandatory use of personal floatation devices for children​

Avia​​tion Safety

​​Videos and Simulations


Protecting your child while traveling doesn't stop at the airport boarding gate. Use an approved child safety seat during the flight as well.
Sled Tests with Child Dummies in Simulated Airplane Crashes. (WMV, 23 MB)
In the American Airlines Flight 1420 accident in Little Rock, Arkansas, shown in the simulation below, a 2​-year old seated in a child safety seat was uninjured. The child's mother stated that it would have been impossible to hold the child during the crash if the child had been seated on her lap. (AVI, 5 MB)

Safety A​lert


Aviation Child Passenger Safety Recommendations

Highway Safety

Videos and Simulations​


Always make sure your children travel ​in an approved car seat or booster seat that has been properly installed.
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Crash simulations show how booster seats can save lives. (Windows Media, 3.5MB)


​ Saf​ety Alert

Highway Child Passenger Safety Recommendations 


​ NTSB Safety Research Reports

​External Resources



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