I have written before on how to select a child safety seat and how to install a child car seat.
Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have issued updated recommendations for child car seat safety.
Learn More:New advice: Tots safest in rear-facing car seats until age 2 [Carla K. Johnson at AP via The Today Show]
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The new recommendations include:
- Children who have outgrown front-facing car seats should ride in booster seats until the lap-shoulder belt fits them properly (Children usually outgrow a booster seat at the height of 4’9")
- Children younger than 13 should ride in the back seat
- Children should remain in rear-facing car seats until at least age 2
The AP article suggests that one-year-olds are 5 times less likely to be injured in a crash if they are in a rear-facing car seat than in a forward-facing seat.
Toddlers have relatively large heads and small necks. In a front-facing car seat, the force of a crash can jerk the child’s head causing spinal cord injuries.
Amazingly, 3 out of 4 car seats are not installed and used correctly.
There is something inherently wrong with a product that is misused 75% of the time — especially when the product is as critical as child’s safety car seat.
Once parents have selected a proper car seat, it is critical that the car seat is installed correctly.
(c) Copyright 2011 Brett A. Emison
Brett Emison is currently a partner at Langdon & Emison, a firm dedicated to helping injured victims across the country from their primary office near Kansas City. Mainly focusing on catastrophic injury and death cases as well as complex mass tort and dangerous drug cases, Mr. Emison often deals with automotive defects, automobile crashes, railroad crossing accidents (train accidents), trucking accidents, dangerous and defective drugs, defective medical devices.
Comments for this article are closed.