Every year, more and more car accidents involving children are happening. As a parent, your number-one priority is your child’s safety; having your children, particularly the newborn one’s, placed in a car seat is one way to keep your child safe, and to prevent a conceivable fatal injury amid a car crash. One mistake the parents commit is holding their children or sitting them on their lap—this is insufficient to keep them protected from any impact during the accident.so this baby gear is the must to have.
Let’s start the Stats
- According to the Central for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 650 children under the age of 12 and under died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and more than 140,000 were injured during 2011 in the United States.
- They also conducted a study, and they found out that, more than 618,000 children whose age varies from 0-12 rode in motor vehicles without the use of a child safety seat or booster seat, in just one year. Of those casualties, 33% of the toddlers were not buckled.
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also states that every 34 seconds, a child under the age of 13 is involved in a car accident.
- A statistic made by The National High Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) demonstrates that here are more than 1,700 fatalities and 840,000 injuries yearly due to vehicle crashes off public highways.
The stated facts above shows, car accident injuries are the foremost source of death among toddlers in the United States. It also demonstrates that a proper car seat suited for your child’s age, weight, and height are fundamental to ensuring your little ones safe when traveling by car. Furthermore, it reduces the risk of motor vehicle accidents, and doing as such can most likely maintain a strategic distance from car crashes. Thus, save lives.
The Law
Most of the states in America have a law that obliges the parents to let their children sit in a car safety seat while on the road. They have incorporated a few guidelines to be followed when installing a car seat in your motor vehicle, as well.
Making use of the right car seat or booster seat that is constantly locked and appropriate to your kid’s size and age can save your lives.
- Rear-facing Car Seat. The suitable age for this car seat position is until the age of two.
- Forward-facing Car Seat. When the child gets bigger and reaches the age of 5, then that’s it right time to place them in a forward-facing position.
- Booster Seat. Once they outgrow the forward-facing seat, buckle them in a booster seat until they reach the proper seat belt height, which is 5.7 inches tall.
- Seat Belt. You can now remove the booster seat once the car’s seat belt fits properly in your child’s body.
For further information about the law that’s proposed, here’s the exact policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
“This policy statement provides 4 evidence-based recommendations for best practices in the choice of a child restraint system to optimize safety in passenger vehicles for children from birth through adolescence: (1) rear-facing car safety seats for most infants up to 2 years of age; (2) forward-facing car safety seats for most children through 4 years of age; (3) belt-positioning booster seats for most children through 8 years of age; and (4) lap-and-shoulder seat belts for all who have outgrown booster seats. In addition, a fifth evidence-based recommendation is for all children younger than 13 years to ride in the rear seats of vehicles.”
Prevention & Solution
Aside from the law that requires parents to use an appropriate car seat of a motor vehicle when there’s a baby on board, there are some recommendations that are proposed by the Community Preventive Services Task Force:
- Manufacturers must meet the safety guidelines when producing a car seat; if you experienced a problem with the car seat, you have purchased, recall it.
- Education programs are very helpful to increase the awareness of the parents regarding the restraint use, and at the same time decrease the risk of car accidents that may lead to fatal injuries.
Reports show that, in 2012, nearly one-third of all car accident fatalities in the United States are caused by those drivers who are alcohol-impaired. Having said that, to avoid involving in a car crash:
- Don’t let your friends drive when they had an alcohol.
- Let the non-drinking member of the group drive instead.
- In case you don’t have any companies, the best option for you is to call a cab.
Regardless of whether your country has a law that obliges you to use a car seat or not, you ought to make use of it instead. You will never know; accidents happen all the time, protect your little ones with this baby gear to abstain from involving in a car crash.