Protecting Children in Cars

Twenty-six children were killed last year and scores were injured in Orange County automobile accidents. But until last week, when three UC Irvine researchers reported on a study of children injured in automobiles, the hazards to children in cars that are not involved in accidents was not generally understood.

Such hazards exist when a driver hits the brake abruptly to avoid an accident, or turns sharply, and sends an unrestrained youngster sitting or standing in the car against the windshield or very often out the door.

When that happens there is a greater degree of risk of serious injury because of being ejected than there is in a collision in which passengers stay in the car. And the chance for ejection is greater, especially for children.

That’s what the researchers found after they studied Orange County emergency-room records covering a period of 45 months. Reporting in last week’s Journal of the American Medical Assn., the UCI researchers said that about 12% of the injuries involved “non-crashes.” And in such accidents children, especially toddlers, stood a much greater chance of being ejected, and thus suffering more multiple and internal head injuries. Only 4% of the children in automobile crashes were ejected, compared with 44% in non-crashes.

Just how many youngsters actually were involved in such serious mishaps is hard to determine, but the total is higher than the records indicate because in some cases, with no other vehicle involved, no accident report was ever filed by the driver.

The saddest and most frustrating part of the survey is that most of the injuries and deaths, in accidents as well as non-crashes, could have been avoided if children had been properly buckled into children’s safety seats or seat belts.

More proof that safety restraints save lives and reduce injuries came out of New York state last week with the disclosure that auto fatalities decreased 27% in the first three months of the year since the state’s new mandatory seat-belt law went into force last January.

The California Legislature has also been considering a mandatory seat-belt law. One should be adopted. The state already has a law requiring safety seats for children. It should be vigorously enforced. But the key to preventing the needless injuries and deaths to children in accidents and non-crashes is still in the hands of adults. All that they need do is be sure that their children are properly buckled in.