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Child Safety Seats Help Keep Florida Children Safe in Car Accidents
Properly-fitted and secured child safety seats are the first line of defense if your child is in a car accident.
January 29, 2012 /Law and Legal PR News/ -- Motor-vehicle accidents can result in serious injuries, especially for child passengers. In fact, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, injuries from motor-vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S.
Each hour, an average of 150 children age 0 to 19 years old are treated in emergency rooms for injuries from motor vehicle accidents. Fortunately though, parents and caregivers can minimize the risk of serious harm to child passengers by properly using child safety seats.
Common Injuries to Child Passengers in Florida
Without appropriate child safety seats, children are susceptible to severe injuries in the event of a motor-vehicle accident. When sitting in the front seat without a car seat during an accident, children are most likely to be injured by the vehicle's front or passenger-side airbags. Airbags deploy at speeds up to 200 mph and at very high temperatures, which can severely harm young children. Common child-passenger injuries include:
- Concussions
- Hematomas or bruising
- Contusions, lacerations or cuts
- Burns
- Facial or skull fractures
- Broken neck, back or spinal cord injury
- Rib fractures and lung injuries
- Pelvic fractures and abdominal injuries
Child Safety Seats Can Help Prevent Injuries
Child safety seats have been proven to reduce the risk of serious injury for child passengers. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that placing children in car seats appropriate for their age and size lessens the risk of death in motor-vehicle accidents by more than 50 percent.
However, child safety seats are often used incorrectly. The National Transportation Safety Board found that although 96 percent of parents using child safety seats, booster seats and safety belts thought that they were using child restraints correctly, safety checkups showed that 4 out of 5 of those parents unintentionally misused the restraints in a way that could have resulted in the child getting injured or killed in a car crash.
Care must be taken, therefore, to ensure that child safety seats are installed and used properly. To assist parents and caretakers with this task, and to help protect child passengers from harm, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued new car-seat recommendations in March, 2011.
New Car-Seat Recommendations
The NHTSA's new car seat recommendations provide updated safety guidelines for four groups of child passengers up to age 13 and include the following overall safety recommendations for parents and caretakers:
- Select a car seat that fits your child and your vehicle. Use it every time the child travels.
- Install the car seat according to the manufacturer's instructions and check the seat's height and weight restrictions.
- Read the vehicle owner's manual on how to install the car seat using the seat belt or LATCH system.
- Keep children in car seats for as long as possible without exceeding the car seat's size limits.
- Require all children less than 13 years old to sit in the back seat.
Children up to 1 year old should always ride in rear-facing car seats according to the NHTSA's new recommendations. For children 1 to 3 years old, rear-facing seats are strongly suggested until the child outgrows the seat's height or weight limitations.
Children age 4 to 7 should use forward-facing car seats with harnesses until they outgrow them, and then use booster seats, still in the back seat. Finally, children age 8 to 13 should continue to use booster seats until adult seat belts fit them properly, according to the NHTSA. A seat belt fits correctly when the shoulder belt lies across the mid-chest and shoulder, not the face or neck, and when the lap belt goes across the upper thighs, not the stomach.
On the same day the NHTSA published its new car seat recommendations, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also published its own identical policy on child safety seats. In a news release, the AAP highlighted the increased length of time that children should be in rear-facing car seats, citing a study that found that children under age 2 are 75 percent less likely to suffer severe injury or die in car accidents when in rear-facing seats.
Dennis Durbin, MD, FAAP and lead author of the AAP policy statement said that rear-facing car seats are better at supporting the head, neck and spine of infants and toddlers in a crash because they distribute the force of a collision over the entire body. Therefore, it is best to keep children in rear-facing car seats as long as possible.
Child safety seats can minimize the risk of harm in a crash, but unfortunately, sometimes serious injuries occur. If your child was injured in a car accident caused by another driver, you may be able to make a claim against that driver in a personal injury lawsuit. To learn more about your legal options, contact an experienced personal injury attorney in your area.
Article provided by Fiol Law Group
Visit us at www.advocatesforyou.com
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