NTSB Boss Boosts Booster Seats

GREENSBORO, N.C.--National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Jim Hall is calling for a national law requiring children ages 4-8 to use booster seats while traveling in vehicles.

“I want to call upon the next Secretary of Transportation to reconvene the Blue Ribbon Panel on protecting older child passengers and to ask the panel to revise its model law so that it recommends the highest level of safety for our children,” Hall said during his keynote address at the North Carolina Child Passenger Safety Conference, which continues through Thursday at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel here.

Hall’s call to action will stand as one of his final acts as chairman of the influential NTSB. He is stepping down today as the Clinton Administration comes to its end.

“We are grateful that Chairman Hall chose this forum to ask for better laws to protect our most vulnerable passengers,” said Joe Parker, director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, which is presenting the conference. “Too many young children graduate from convertible safety seats to adult seat belts, which may not fully protect them in a crash, or to no restraint at all. These children need and deserve the protection booster seats provide.”

The conference is designed to help local supporters prepare for Child Passenger Safety Week activities in February, as well as to aid their everyday efforts to help families travel more safely. More than 200 law enforcement officers, fire and rescue personnel, health providers and child advocates from across North Carolina are registered to attend. Numerous state and national child passenger safety experts will speak and/or participate in workshops. Among them are representatives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Safety Council, the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, Nationwide Insurance, Ford’s “Boost America!” and North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Jim Long.