Ride safely with children

Dr. Mary Katherine Maroney

It may be tempting when in a hurry to allow children to ride in a car without first taking the time to be sure all, including the driver, are secured in an appropriate safety seat or seat belt.

Motor vehicle crashes are the single leading cause of death in children up to age 14 in America. Since the vast majority of fatal and nonfatal automobile injuries are predictable and preventable, here's what you can do to prevent such injuries from happening to your child or other children in your care.

Child-safety seats work

Children, especially those younger than 5, are vulnerable in collisions because of the smaller size and shape of their bodies. The child-safety seat is designed to spread the forces of a crash over more of the body for front-facing toddlers and cradle the fragile neck and back of the rear-facing infant.

According to the Department of Transportation, if child-safety seats are used correctly, they are 71 percent effective in reducing fatalities in children younger than 5 and 69 percent effective in reducing hospitalizations. Unfortunately, caregivers too often consider child seats inconvenient and forgo using them.

While some studies show a high safety seat use rate, these same studies document that there is a high misuse rate. Examples of misuse include improper direction (i.e., front-facing rather than rear-facing), using the wrong type of seat for the child's size, and not buckling the child in the seat snugly. Such misuse results in a markedly decreased effectiveness of the safety seat in the event of a crash.

Premature use of seat belts

One major problem with regard to child passenger safety is the premature placement of young children in seat belts. Many parents mistakenly believe that once their children outgrow their little forward-facing child-safety seats, an adult seat belt is good enough. This can seriously harm small children in a crash since seat belts are designed for adults taller than 4 feet 9 inches and weighing more than 80 pounds.

With small children, the lap belt tends to ride up over their abdomens and the shoulder belt cuts across their necks. The solution is for parents to use booster seats until children reach about 80 pounds and are at least 4 feet 9 inches tall. At this height, the belt should fit correctly.

If you notice that your child cannot sit with his back straight against your car seat's cushion with knees bent over the seat edge without slouching, he needs to be in a booster seat. Remember, about 50 percent of the children younger than 5 who die in crashes were not in a child-safety seat. Of the remaining 50 percent, 26 percent were in an adult belt, which does not provide effective protection for most children younger than 5.

Is your child-safety seat secure in your car? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a Web-based locator service so parents and caregivers can find a convenient place to have their child-safety seats inspected. Go to www.nhtsa.dot.gov and click on "Child Safety Seat Inspections" to find a list of inspection locations. If you do not have Internet access, call (888) 327-4236 to find an inspection location near you.

Dr. Mary Katharine Maroney is director and professor of nursing at Utica College. Maroney can be reached via e-mail at mmaroney@utica.edu.