A friend pulled me aside last week urging me to write about car seat and seatbelt safety. His family had been involved in a rollover accident on the way home from school — literally, just turning in an intersection, as I understand it, they were plowed into by another car which caused their car to flip. No one was seriously injured, thank goodness, but the children were left dangling upside down, hanging by seat belts, until the medics arrived. Clearly they were shaken…and reminded how precious our time is on this planet — and how the most dangerous thing most of us do everyday is drive. All the children had seat belts on and all the children were in the back seat. Phew!
Thing is, just after this dad urged me to write this, I mean literally, just minutes later, we pulled away from a group of parents at pick-up and I watched an 11 year-old get into the front seat of her family’s car and drive away. My stomach dropped. Children under age 13 shouldn’t be in the front seat and goodness gracious, the irony of the timing just got me in the gut. Hard to message and write about something that I feel parents don’t want to know more about. Something about a laxity here for many people remains…seems this is advice many already feel they know (and don’t want to take).
3 reasons children shouldn’t sit it front seat until age 13 years: 1) It’s always safer to ride in the backseat (it’s also illegal to ride in front under age 13 years in WA state), 2) children under age 13 years are at increased risk for injury from airbags (designed for a 140 lb male), and 3) children’s bone development at the hips and breastbone is immature leading to increased risk of more serious injury in front seat
When it comes to infants and little children, maybe it’s different — I feel like parents are more interested in the data and reminders. Research out last week confirms what pediatricians have been recommending for years: rear-facing car seats to keep children safer in rear impact collisions. “We found that the rear-facing car seats protected the crash test dummy well when exposed to a typical rear impact,” said lead study author Julie Mansfield. If you’re hit from behind or the side or the front, we want children under 2 years of age rear-facing! Read full post »
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