U.S. to Order Uniform Child Safety Seats

President Clinton will order new government standards for goof-proof child safety seats in an effort to save more of the hundreds of children killed each year in car wrecks.

The president will announce in his radio address today the Transportation Department’s intention to standardize the 50 or more child safety seat designs on the market, officials said Friday.

With so many variations in belt and seat designs, consumers and experts say it is too easy now for parents to install car seats the wrong way.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, a father of three young children, put it in plain English: “You never know how to get the little thingy in through the back and get it stuck into the little deal. . . . You never know if it’s plugged in or not.

“It’s a mess, so we’re going to fix it,” he told reporters.

A universal attachment system for children’s car seats was recommended back in 1995 by a panel of experts commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The transportation agency says about 80% of child car seats are not properly installed, contributing to the deaths of some 350 preschool children in 1995 traffic accidents. At the same time, the government estimates that 279 children survived 1995 wrecks because they were properly strapped in.

Phil Haseltine of the American Coalition of Traffic Safety, who headed the NHTSA panel, said a universal attachment mechanism would not only be easier to use, it would allow any seat to be moved into any vehicle.

“It takes a government standard to do that so the latches are all the same, and they all provide the same level of protection,” he said.

Haseltine estimated that standardizing child seats would add between $11 and $20 to their cost. Most child seats now cost between $40 and $125, he said.