FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2003
CONTACT: Sid Gaulden, 803-896-8755
L/Cpl. Paul Brouthers, SCHP, 843-953-6083
SAFETY ORGANIZATIONS TEAM UP STATEWIDE
TO PROTECT CHILDREN IN MOTOR VEHICLES
COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina Department of Public Safety joined the state SAFE KIDS campaign and hospitals, including the Medical University of South Carolina, around the state today to emphasize the importance of properly restraining child passengers as part of National Child Passenger Safety Week, February 9-15.
Nationwide, fewer children age 15 and younger were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2001 than at any time since record keeping began in 1975. Today, 95 percent of infants and 91 percent of toddlers, age one to four are restrained in safety seats. However, the bad news is that 85 percent of those children are improperly restrained. The misuse rate is even higher in South Carolina. Safety seat technicians have found that more than 95 percent of the seats they checked were improperly installed.
“What we have learned from the research is that how your child rides in the vehicle may be just as important as external factors such as vehicle speed and road conditions,” said DPS Director B. Boykin Rose. “Riding unrestrained is the single greatest risk factor for death and injury
among child motor vehicle occupants.”
DPS, South Carolina SAFE KIDS representatives, hospital pediatric/ER units, emergency medical services personnel, and coroners are joining forces throughout the state this week to convey several important messages to parents about buckling up their children.
Riding unrestrained is the greatest risk factor to children in a motor vehicle crash - making them twice as likely to die or be severely injured in a crash.
An estimated 85 percent of children who are placed in child safety seats and booster seats are improperly restrained. The types of misuse can range from: having the wrong seat for a child's age and size, moving children to a larger seat before they're ready, not securing the seat tightly in the vehicle and not securing the child correctly in the seat.
Other risk factors include: placing a child in the front seat with an air bag. The backseat is always safest for children 12 and under. They are 36 percent less likely to die in a crash if they are in the rear seat of a passenger vehicle.
Moving to a safety belt too early. Most children age four to eight need to be in booster seats. Children age two to five who are prematurely graduated to safety belts are four times more likely to sustain a serious head injury than those restrained in child safety seats or booster seats.
“The single most important thing a parent or care giver can do to protect
children is to buckle them up properly, every trip, every time,” said Ree
Mallison, State Director SC SAFE KIDS.
“Most crashes occur within 25 miles of home.”
This year's national emphasis is on making sure children who have outgrown safety seats are properly restrained in booster seats. Less than 10 percent of children who should be restrained in booster seats ride in one. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
recommends that children who have outgrown child safety seats be properly restrained in booster seats from about age four and 40 pounds to at least age eight, unless they reach 4'9".
“If parents could get a glimpse of what we see in the emergency room when an unrestrained child is severely injured in a motor vehicle collision, I think no child would ever ride unrestrained again,” said Dr. John Ringwood, Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at MUSC
. “The saddest fact of all is that most of these injuries and deaths are preventable. That's why we are here to plead with parents to become experts on keeping their children safe in a vehicle.”Also contact:
MUSC: Caroline Davila, 843-792-2539
South Carolina SAFE KIDS: Ree Mallison, 803-796-1950
Trident SAFE KIDS Coalition: Amy Ethridge, 843-792-5327
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