Buckle In -It's A Bumpy Ride (If You're A Kid)

My loving brother used to vigorously berate me every time I would put my son in the car in order to take him for a drive to put him to sleep. Loudly, vehemently, these were his words, “You are putting my nephew at risk. What you are doing is stupid.” Now, to hear my otherwise genteel brother describe me so one would think that I was tossing my son in the front seat (or the trunk) sans car seat and driving blindfolded after downing ten mint juleps in the middle of the night. Rather, I was buckling him into his 5-point harness LATCH safety seat and taking a slow afternoon drive up to Rainbow Falls and then back home. A total of (if I was stretching it) seven minutes in the car. However, his angst was entirely legitimate. According to the CDC, car collisions are the number one source of injury and death among children. On average 504 injuries and 4 deaths occur among children on a DAILY basis resulting in 1,335 death and 184,000 injuries per year While the advent of child safety restraints in 1971 heralded a dramatic initial drop in the incidence of motor vehicle injury and death among children, the subsequent data shows inconsistencies in a further reduction. These inconsistencies are evident by the 425 preventable deaths per year due to unrestrained children. Their unfortunate deaths may be a result of several factors that include the actual lack of a safety seat, confusion regarding legal requirements regarding age and weight of a child needing to be restrained, generational and cultural beliefs that conflict with restraining a child, and parental/ caregiver removal of the child from the safety seat in order to breastfeed and/or comfort. (I am so guilty of this last one.) These are then coupled with the speculated and yet unspecified number of deaths due to use of a recalled safety seat, inadequate safety seat construction, improper installation of the car seat, confusion about the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH), and overall frustration with use. Proper restraint in a motor vehicle reduces the risk of fatality in a crash by approximately 70%. However, multiple studies have found approximately 85% of car seats are misused. 85%? That means you and me and possibly nearly every person we know is clueless when it comes to car seats. While the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides specific guidelines to prevent injury and death, it delegates the development, implementation, and enforcement of actual legislative guidelines to the jurisdiction of individual States. The result of which is an entirely varied and incomprehensive system of occupant protection laws and fines, and ultimately practices, that endanger children and confuse parents and caregivers. Why are there 50 separate sets of laws regarding safety seat use? Why do only 15 of those (Hawai’i is included) actually specify where in your car your child is most safe? In the rear, in the middle seats. So there you have it. My brother can actually say he told me so. Arggghhhh!