Most precious cargo: child restrainst continue to save young lives, but gaps persist in many state laws.

• Author: Savage, Melissa

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

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...