Safety

AuthorJeffrey Wilson
Pages89-94

Page 89

Background

Those who drive cars may not realize the amount of thought that goes into safety, both in terms of safety equipment in the vehicle and the requirements of safe driving. Safety is incorporated into the U.S. driving culture in many ways. From safety belts and air bags, to motorcycle helmet laws and driving while impaired laws, there is a delicate balance between the government's role of protecting the driving and pedestrian population through safety laws and regulations and the public's and the automobile industry's privacy interests.

For the most part, market forces determined how manufacturers addressed safety issues in their vehicles. There was a good deal of tension between obvious safety hazards and the public's unwillingness to pay for vehicle modifications or features that appeared to be "optional." But in the 1960s, a grassroots level movement, led by Ralph Nader and others, sought to inform the public, auto manufacturers, and the government about the serious safety risks in vehicles.

The late 1960s saw the first regulatory measures to make cars safer. For example, the threat of a federal mandate for auto manufacturers to install anchors for front safety belts prompted the industry to install them "voluntarily" as standard equipment. In hearings in 1965, testimony from many physicians resulted in a recommendation that all cars sold in the state of New York would have by 1968 the seventeen safety features already required in federally owned vehicles. Around that time Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, and Washington also conducted hearings on automobile safety.

As of 2002, there are large federal agencies that oversee an enormous array of federal laws and regulations that are intended to safeguard American drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. These are supplemented by many additional laws and regulations in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories and possessions.

Child Passenger Safety

Traffic crashes are one of the leading causes of death in the United States. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. territories

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have child passenger safety laws on the books. These do much to reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries from vehicle crashes. But the biggest problem with these laws remains the significant gaps and exemptions in coverage that diminish the protection that all children need in motor vehicles.

According to the September 1998 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, the best predictor of child occupant restraint use is adult safety belt use. In other words, an adult driver who is buckled up is far more likely to restrain a child passenger than one who is not buckled.

Proper Child Safety Seat Use

Perhaps the single most important rule about children in vehicles is that children should be seated in the back seat at all times.

The proper seating information for infants, birth to one year or up to twenty-two pounds is:

If the car seat also converts to a carrier, the infant should face the rear

Harness straps should be at or below the shoulders

Infants should never be in the front seat, especially if the vehicle is equipped with passenger-side air bags.

The proper seating information for toddlers, twenty-two to forty pounds is:

If the car seat also converts to a carrier, the child should face forward,

Harness straps should be above shoulder level.

Toddlers should never be in the front seat, especially if the vehicle is equipped with passenger-side air bags.

The proper seating information for preschool children, forty to eighty pounds is:

They need a belt positioning booster seat,

They should face forward,

Their booster seat must be used with both lap and shoulder belts,

The lap belt should fit low and tight.

There are child safety seat laws in every state plus the District of Columbia. Police and other law enforcement officers are allowed to issue a citation when they see a violation of these laws. There are some 18 states that have gaps in their child passenger restraint laws; in these states, some children are not covered by either a child safety seat law or a safety belt law. Additionally, in states where children are protected under the safety belt law as opposed to specific child safety seat laws, police may enforce the law only if a driver violates an additional law.

Safety belt laws do protect children. For example, the NHTSA found that when Louisiana upgraded its safety belt law from secondary to standard enforcement, compliance with child restraint rules rose from 45 percent to 82 percent without any other change in the state's child passenger safety law.

Booster Seat Safety

Automobile accidents are a leading cause of death and injury for American children. Approximately 500 of the nearly 19.5 million children in the five to nine year-old age group die in automobile accidents. About 100,000 more are injured in automobile crashes each year. Although the fatality rate has decreased for other age groups in the same time period, the fatality rate in automobile crashes for this age group has remained constant over the past twenty years. That is why this particular age group is sometimes known as "the forgotten child;" they have outgrown toddler-sized child safety seats but do not yet fit into adult safety belts properly. Despite this problem, neither government nor industry has made concerted efforts to address the safety needs of children ages five to nine.

Booster seats are one answer to this problem...

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