Child Car Safety
Reports have suggested that about 95 percent of families install their newborns’ car seats incorrectly, almost 75 percent of parents face their children’s car seats the wrong way and many older kids aren’t using booster seats as recommended.
A report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration presented the factors that may increase the likelihood of a child dying in a car accident in the U.S. based on four years of data. Looking at 18,116 kids under the age of 15 who were involved in fatal crashes (kids who survived the crashes and those who died) between 2010 and 2014, researchers found that 20 percent of these child passengers were improperly restrained or not restrained at all.
Overall, nearly 16 percent of those children were killed in these fatal accidents. Forty-three percent of the children who died were unrestrained or improperly restrained, and 13 percent were inappropriately seated in the front seat of the car.
In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its guidelines on car seats to recommend that toddlers stay rear-facing until the age of 2, or until they exceed the height and weight limit for their seat.
