Parents Are Buckling Down to Seat Belt Safety : Government Agency Says Lap Variety May Be Hazardous to Your Health

The word from Washington hit the streets here with all the enthusiasm traditionally reserved for a flat tire in rush-hour traffic.

After years of impassioned warnings to “Buckle up!”--and now a state law that requires it--the National Transportation Safety Board last week issued a report saying that rear seat belts of the lap variety might be hazardous to your health.

The Washington-based agency said that in some accidents lap belts (as opposed to shoulder/lap belts) could even be responsible for serious or fatal injuries.

Killer lap belts?

Might you or your passengers be better off not wearing them?

Hard to Predict

The Safety Board said it didn’t know for sure whether car passengers would be safer securing themselves in lap belts or ignoring them. After all, the board acknowledged it had investigated only front-end crashes and it’s hard to predict what sort of crash you could be involved in.

(In its study of 26 front-end car crashes, the board’s investigators found that numerous passengers in the back seats wearing lap belts were subject to injuries to the abdomen, spine or head from the “violent jackknifing of the body upon impact.”

(The report said “in many cases, the lap belts induced severe to fatal injuries that probably would not have occurred if the lap belts had not been worn.” It also noted that of the 50 people who wore only a lap belt, 32 would have “fared substantially better” if they had worn shoulder/lap belts. Thus the board urged that the government require shoulder/lap belts in rear seats of all new cars, not just front seats where they’re already required.)

But then, on the same day last week, another federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, begged to differ. This group argued that its data, covering thousands of cases, showed that a rear-seat passenger “has a better chance of avoiding serious injury or death by wearing a lap belt as opposed to wearing no belt at all.”

Who do you believe?

More importantly, what do you do, particularly if you’re a parent whose children are frequently buckled into rear-seat lap belts?

It turns out that local safety-conscious parents interviewed by The Times feel reasonably assured with their own solutions.

Take Jeremy Kramer, father of three (“two in car seats, one in a seat belt”).

One Seat Belt Short

Kramer, who lives in the Beverly-Fairfax area and works in the advertising specialty (giveaway) business, considers himself extremely safety-oriented. So much so that when he serves as den father to his son’s group of seven Cub Scouts, he will not drive them all in his Toyota van. The van is one seat belt short. Instead, Kramer arranges for the boys to ride in two cars, where there are enough seat belts for everyone.

And when his 9-year-old son went to camp, Kramer made sure to check that the camp bus was equipped with seat belts--and that the campers were required to wear them.

Though Kramer’s van is equipped with shoulder/lap belts in the front seats and lap belts for the rear seats, Kramer said he plans to continue insisting that passengers wear their seat belts, whatever the type.

“As far as I’m concerned, my kids are going to continue to wear lap belts. When the government requires shoulder harnesses, then we’ll go with that,” Kramer declared. “We are a seat belt family. I’m from the generation when all seat belts were lap belts, optional equipment.”

Benida Solow, a stained glass artist who lives in Brentwood, similarly feels satisfied with the safety system she already has in place for her two children.

The mother of a 4-year-old and a 9-month old, Solow agrees that shoulder/lap harnesses are safer than mere lap belts. But she notes that when her 4-year-old daughter has tried to use a shoulder/lap belt, the belts hits her in the face. Solow, who is small, has also experienced a similar problem with shoulder belts that act as if they’re out to strangle her.

Solow’s solution is to transport her 9-month-old infant in a baby carrier, held in place with a lap belt in the back seat of the car. On short trips, her 4-year-old rides in the front seat of the car, wearing the irritating shoulder/lap belt.

On longer trips, the 4-year-old rides in the back seat in her plastic-padded booster seat that is held in place by a lap belt.

Andrea Schwartz, a Brentwood mother and businesswoman, reported she was a little confused by the “controversy of one agency saying lap belts are OK and another agency saying they aren’t. “

Nonetheless, she decided the lap belt is “adequate” to hold her 5-year-old daughter’s booster seat in the back seat of the car.

But Schwartz, too, has found difficulties with having her child sit in the front seat wearing a shoulder/lap belt.

“In the front seat, she’ll put on the shoulder strap but she puts it behind her because it will strangle her. I think that’s what the pediatrician suggests,” Schwartz said. “We don’t use the back seat of the car for adults so I’m not going to put a shoulder strap in.”

First-Hand Experience

Gayle Kirschbaum, a mother who has experienced the power of seat belts first hand, is considering “the possibility of a shoulder belt.” But for the moment she’s just glad that her 1 1/2-year-old daughter’s infant seat was secured by a lap belt during a recent accident.

“Thank God for the car seat and the seat belt or she wouldn’t have been alive. Our car was struck by a truck and spun around three times--the truck kept hitting us in all directions,” she said, adding that the car seat barely moved as the car was spinning and the infant had no outward signs of injury. (Kirschbaum, who was driving and wearing a shoulder/lap belt, is currently being treated for soft-tissue injuries.)

“I could see the possibility of a shoulder belt or some kind of an even greater restraining belt for a car seat,” she emphasized. “But I can’t even imagine being in a car without a seat belt. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

No parents interviewed by The Times indicated they were rushing out to have shoulder/lap belts installed in the back seats of their cars (several respondents already had them by virtue of the fact that they drove Volvos or Saabs or other European-made cars on which rear shoulder belts are standard equipment).

A New Dilemma

But those who wish to have rear seat shoulder belts installed in their cars may encounter a new dilemma: finding the appropriate parts and individuals willing to install them.

Rear-seat shoulder/lap belts are not standard equipment in any American cars, save for the foreign-made Ford Mercour. (Rear-seat shoulder/lap belts are standard in many European car models and some Japanese models.)

On some American cars, rear-seat shoulder/lap belts have been options, but auto makers say that because demand has been low, dealers are not likely to have these “accessory items” in stock.

General Motors, however, announced in June that rear shoulder/lap seat belts will be standard equipment in selected 1987 models and “in all production models during the ’88 to ’89 time frame.” In addition, according to a GM spokesman, a “retrofit kit” for installing rear seat shoulder/lap belts will be made available to the public “in the next few weeks, somewhere in the price range of about $130.”

Ford Motor Co. has indicated that it will begin offering standard rear shoulder/lap belts in some of its 1988 models. “We are not offering retrofits at this time,” said a spokesperson. “It’s under serious study. Up until the controversy there wasn’t a lot of consumer interest in rear seat shoulder belts.”

At Chrysler, where no car models offer rear seat shoulder/lap belts as standard equipment, no timetable for their offering has been announced. However, a spokesperson indicated the matter is under serious study by the firm as is the matter of retrofit kits.

Countless Safety Tips

In the meantime, however, Stephanie Tombrello, executive director of the Los Angeles Area Child Passenger Safety Assn., is suggesting that rear shoulder/lap belt seekers contact Rupert Industries in Jupiter, Fla., or J. C. Whitney in Chicago.

And Tombrello has countless safety tips to offer all car passengers concerned for their safety and others’.

“Starting with the basics, the best protection is to ride in the rear seat facing the rear. That’s the safest way for anyone to ride. The back seat tends to be the safer place to be because you’re (usually) farther away from the point of collision,” Tombrello said, adding that her organization, founded in 1980, is a local nonprofit organization funded by community support.

On the issue of whether to use lap belts when that’s the only option, Tombrello is decidedly in favor of lap belt usage.

“You’re 25 times more likely to die if you’re thrown out of a motor vehicle,” she said. “If you’re not using some form of restraint, you have a higher possibility of being ejected from the automobile. When you get a comment that lap belts may injure someone you’ve got to put it into the perspective that if you’re not kept inside the vehicle you’re much more likely to be killed.”

While Tombrello clearly prefers shoulder/lap belts to lap belts, she acknowledges that the former are sometimes a problem for children (and short adults) to wear because of their size.

For young children, she recommends keeping them in car seats (secured by lap belts or shoulder/lap belts) until age 4 and until they weigh at least 40 pounds.

For children older than 4 years, Tombrello prefers that they ride in “harness booster seats” until they are age 8 or 10 and approximately 65 pounds. “Don’t be in a rush for your kid to be out of a car seat. It’s a wonderful protection,” she urged. “A booster seat doesn’t ruin a kid’s mental capacity.”

Booster Seats

At age 8 or 10, Tombrello feels children can ride safely in shoulder/lap belts, but if the belts irritate their necks, a piece of soft sheepskin can be attached to the belt. If the children are so short that the shoulder straps hit them in the face, she recommends they remain in the booster seats.

While Tombrello is dismayed that some people may have heard a few facts about the lap belt controversy and stopped using their lap belts without hearing other arguments, she’s pleased that at least the issue of passenger safety is receiving more attention.

As she put it, “The positive thing that’s come out of this controversy is that it looks like things (availability of shoulder/lap belts, perhaps federal regulations requiring them in rear seats) will be moved along a little faster.”