Most Precious Cargo

If you ask parents today how they got their baby home from the hospital, they’ll tell you in an infant car seat. If you ask those parents how they got home from the hospital when they were born, they’ll probably tell you in their mother’s arms in the front seat of the family car. A lot has changed in the past 30 years regarding child passenger safety. Kids today can expect to ride in a car seat or booster seat into their elementary school years. And in most states it’s the law.

But that wasn’t always the case. In 1977 not one state required child passengers to ride in any type of restraint, let alone specified the type of car seat they were required to be in. That changed in 1978 when the first law requiring children under age 4 to ride in a car seat went into effect in Tennessee.

“Dr. Seat Belt”
Public perception regarding seat belts and car seats has changed a lot in 30 years. Statistics now prove that child passenger laws save lives. Back in the 1970s, changing public perception on the need for occupant protection and passing the first child safety law was a battle.

Beginning in 1976, pediatrician Dr. Robert Sanders, otherwise known as “Dr. Seat Belt,” and his wife, Pat, led the charge to get the Tennessee law passed. Opponents argued that car seats were hard to find and expensive. Parents with three or four small children opposed the bill for financial reasons and argued that there wasn’t enough room in the family car for so many child safety seats. But the main argument against the law was its intrusion upon individual liberties.

While the Tennessee law was being debated, a movement began in many states to educate young parents about the importance of child safety seats. Many pediatricians made it a priority. And the need for laws became apparent. “You can educate people to stop at stop signs, but most won’t unless there is a law,” says Pat Sanders.

So Dr. Sanders and an army of pediatricians got to work developing a grassroots lobbying effort, calling on their colleagues and friends and asking them to talk to legislators. They argued that children didn’t have a choice about safety and that not buckling them up in the car was a form of child neglect.

Dr. Sanders’ constant contact with legislators, pediatricians and safety advocates finally paid off when the bill passed in 1977.  Six years later, deaths of child passengers under 4 had declined by more than 50 percent in Tennessee.  By 1985, every state and the District of Columbia had passed similar laws.

These laws made a tremendous impact in the number of young lives saved, but it eventually became clear that they weren’t enough.

Moving 4-year-olds into regular seat belts was dangerous. In crashes, young children in adult-sized belts suffered serious internal injuries. So starting in 2000, legislators began making changes to their laws, mainly by passing booster seat laws. These laws apply to children who would normally not be covered by the child passenger law, but are still too small for an adult-sized safety belt. Today, 38 states and the District of Columbia have some form of booster seat law.

Car Seats Work
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that almost 7,900 young lives were saved by using car seats between 1975 and 2005. However, many more lives could have been saved if all children were properly buckled up in a motor vehicle. Every day, four children die and more than 550 are injured in traffic crashes, ranking motor vehicle deaths as the number one killer of children over age 2. NHTSA estimates that, while car seats saved 392 lives in 2006, an additional 98 children could have been saved if all kids under age 5 were properly restrained. Child safety seats reduce the risk of death in car crashes by 71 percent for infants and 54 percent for toddlers.

Most of the state laws today explicitly outline for parents when and how their children are expected to be buckled up. In Colorado, for example, the law requires that children under age 1 and under 20 pounds sit in a rear-facing child safety seat. Once they hit the 20-pound mark, they may ride in a forward-facing car seat. And when they reach age 4 and hit 40 pounds, they can move to a belt-positioning booster seat. They have to ride in a booster seat until they are 6 and at least 55 inches tall. Thirty-seven other states and the District of Columbia have similar, but different, requirements. Booster seat laws vary widely across the country, causing confusion for parents.  Because several states have laws that cover children only up to age 4, parents are given the false impression that after this age they can ride safely when restrained in an adult seat belt.

Grants Available
Thanks to lobbying by AAA and others in the safety community, the federal transportation law, SAFETEA-LU, offers incentive grants to states that enact and enforce booster seat laws. Under the program, the laws must apply to children up to age 8, or 65 pounds or 4’9” tall. States receiving grants can use the funds for child passenger safety education, enforcement and training activities, as well as to purchase and distribute restraints to low-income families.  Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia qualified for the grants in FY 2007.

Doing It Right
In 2006, NHTSA released a study showing that 72 percent of parents did not use car seats correctly, and that can be almost as dangerous as not using one at all. NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason, herself a parent, has first-hand experience with the difficulties associated with installing safety seats. When preparing for the birth of her first child, she and her husband had such a frustrating time putting in a child seat that they took it back to the store and tried a different model.

Most agree that it can take a feat of physical agility to get the car seat installed correctly. That’s why many choose to call in the professionals.

Certified car seat safety technicians usually work out of fire departments, hospitals and even some retail stores to help parents  install car seats. Six states grant technicians immunity from liability if a car seat they’ve installed is found to have been installed incorrectly and contributed to an injury or death.

Over the years the federal government has come up with ways to make car seat use easier. In-car tools like LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) help simplify the installation of child restraints without using the vehicle’s seat belt system. New vehicles and child safety seats manufactured after Sept. 1, 2002, come with this system.

Keeping Kids Safe
Over the last 30 years, legislators have worked to make sure kids are safe in cars. “But there is still more work to be done to close loopholes and strengthen occupant protection laws so they protect our most precious cargo,” says Jennifer Ryan, manager of state relations for AAA.

AAA, Safe Kids Worldwide and other advocates have not stopped working. They want to see state laws reflect best practices for safety, Ryan says. Booster seat laws still vary widely and 12 states have yet to pass them.

“Legislators continued to strengthen child passenger laws in 2007 and are working again this session to raise requirements and close loopholes,” Ryan says. “The federal grants will encourage states to meet higher standards that make laws more consistent and reduce the confusion for parents. As a result, even more young lives will be saved.”

CHECK OUT our online timeline from invention of the first child safety seat to the 30th anniversary of the first child passenger restraint law. Also online see a 50-state map showing the 38 states with booster seat laws. Go to www.ncsl.org/magazine

When Parents Are Dangerous on the Road
One-fourth of all motor vehicle occupant deaths among children under 15 involve a drunk driver, according to the Centers for Disease Control. More than 66 percent of those children were riding with a driver who had been drinking. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the majority of children killed by drunk drivers are riding in their family’s cars, driven by their intoxicated parents.

More than 38 states have passed child endangerment statutes to respond to parents who drive drunk with young passengers. Michigan requires impaired drivers to be sentenced to a maximum 93 days and fined $500 if they were driving with someone younger than 16 in the car. Instead of increasing the penalties for a DUI while driving with a child, North Carolina law allows judges and juries to consider it a “grossly aggravating factor” during sentencing. A sentence with a “grossly aggravating factor” carries a punishment of a week to 12 months in jail and a fine up to $2,000.

Whether the state law enhances DUI penalties, adds a separate offense of child endangerment, or designates child endangerment as an aggravating factor, most states are addressing the issues of child passenger safety and impaired driving.

At Risk
Child fatalities from motor vehicle crashes have steadily decreased since 1975, most notably in the 1990s. A 1998 study, however, revealed that some children are more likely to die in car accidents than others. The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health reported that Hispanic children ages 5 through 12 are 72 percent more likely to die in a traffic accident than non-Hispanic children of the same age.

While all parents, from every race and ethnicity, have difficulty properly installing the complex safety seats, many Central and South American countries do not have child passenger protection laws. Immigrants from Latin America have little experience with child safety seats.

Traffic safety organizations like AAA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are working to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers by offering a variety of services and literature in Spanish. NHTSA maintains a database of child safety seat inspection locations around the country that can be easily accessed in English or Spanish by calling (toll-free) 866-SEAT-CHECK (866-732-8243) or by logging onto www.seatcheck.org.