Nearly 70% of preteens involved in fatal car crashes over a recent 11-year period weren’t properly buckled or in a car seat, according to a study from Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Researchers looked at passenger safety practices for 50,000 children younger than 13 who were involved in a car crash with at least one fatality recorded in the national Fatality Analysis Reporting System database between 2011 and 2021. The data shows that:
- In 36% of the incidents, the child was “prematurely transitioned to a less protective restraint.”
- 20% of the kids were unrestrained in the car.
- 15% were riding in the front seat.
Findings also show that stricter child passenger restraint system laws and larger fines for first seat belt offenses were “significantly associated with lower odds of suboptimal child passenger safety practices.”
An average of three kids are killed each day in motor vehicle crashes and 429 more are injured, the hospital states.
“In addition to identifying individual factors and geographic areas that can be targeted for interventions, we show that state policy makes a huge difference in promoting safer transportation practices for child passengers,” said study author Michelle Macy, director of the Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation Center at Lurie Children’s.
The study was published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.
The National Safety Council offers two free training courses on properly restraining children in vehicles:
