Auto Seat Restraints for Children

As a pediatrician and neonatologist I much appreciated your editorial “Disregard for Law” (March 10), having to do with car seat use in California.

Forty-five children died in California last year as a result of not being properly restrained in approved infant restraints. Hundreds may have been injured as well. An article in your paper earlier in the week mentioned that more than 300 citations were issued by the California Highway Patrol last year for improperly restrained children. If this is true, then not only parents are disregarding the law but the officers that are supposed to be enforcing the law are not doing so!

Based on my observations driving on the local freeways, thousands of infants are not being placed in car seats. Only when laws are enforced does compliance with the law occur. I would pray that 45 more children do not die next year through lack of enforcement of laws passed to prevent injury and death of innocent citizens of this state.

ARTHUR STRAUSS, M.D.

Irvine