Small Bodies, Deadly Danger: Seat Belts Not Enough to Protect Young Lives
27 October 1999
Small Bodies, Deadly Danger: Seat Belts Not Enough to Protect Young Lives
PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y.--Oct. 27, 1999--Parents Learn the Hard Way That Booster Seats Save Lives
Earlier this year, millions of motorists were shocked to learn they were putting their children at risk -- by strapping them into incorrectly installed or defective safety seats.
But the danger exposed in that Reader's Digest report gives way to a new and often overlooked threat as youngsters outgrow their child safety seats, the magazine warns in its November 1999 issue.
Most parents assume that children 4 and up are ready for an adult seat belt, reports Hal Karp in "Kids at Risk: When Seat Belts Are Not Enough." Those parents are dead wrong, experts say: Adult lap and shoulder belts do little good -- and often harm -- unless children use a booster seat as well, so the belts fit correctly.
But as Karp discovered, an estimated 95 percent of child passengers who should be in boosters are not getting this protection.
"The early graduation of kids into adult lap and shoulder belts is a leading cause of child-occupant injuries and deaths," says Dr. Flaura Winston, director of an injury-research center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Millions are riding around without adequate protection," adds Phil Haseltine, president of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety.
Even after they outgrow their child safety seat, youngsters under 80 pounds and 58 inches generally need the extra protection a booster seat provides. But most parents apparently assume that because they are not mandatory, the boosters are unnecessary.
That's a potentially tragic assumption, warns police officer Bob Wall, a child-passenger safety instructor in Fairfax County, Va. "State law usually ends with 3- and 4-year-olds," he says, but "the law of physics lasts a lifetime."
"I put my trust in the law," says Autumn Alexander Skeen of Washington state. "I thought seat belts were enough." But her 4-year-old, Anton, who had outgrown his safety seat, was killed when Autumn's SUV flipped on an Interstate near Yakima. The oversized lap and shoulder belt failed to keep him from being thrown out the side and crushed.
Of nearly 500 passengers aged 5 to 9 who were killed in a recent year, more than 150 were probably much like Anton -- too small for seat belts to hold them snug. As many as 56,700 children in this age group were injured in 1997 despite wearing seat belts, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
And being thrown loose from the seat is not the only danger. Severed intestines, ruptured diaphragms, even spinal damage -- emergency medical teams call these common injuries "seat-belt syndrome." Any organ within the abdomen is vulnerable when the child's poorly-fitting lap belt rides too high.
The booster seat cuts this risk by positioning the lap belt low and snug across the hips and upper thighs, with the shoulder belt resting smoothly across chest and shoulder. But as concerned parents tell Reader's Digest, booster seats for larger children - more than 60 pounds -- can be costly and hard to find.
And many safety-minded parents may actually be putting their child at risk by substituting the popular add-on devices that adjust seat-belt placement. Government tests on three repositioning devices cast serious doubt on the benefit of such products. A spokeswoman for one manufacturer emphasized its product is not meant as a substitute for a booster.
"The Alarming Truth About Safety Seats," in the March issue of Reader's Digest, launched a public safety campaign alerting parents nationwide. That threat most involved infants and toddlers; now the magazine is following up with a message of life-saving importance for every family with a 4- to-9-year-old.
That message is simple: booster seats save lives. Just ask Krista Baker of Terre Haute, Ind., who was unaware of the threat until she attended a SAFE KIDS organization car-safety checkup. Just months later, her 4-year-old son -- properly perched on his new booster and wearing an adult lap and shoulder belt -- survived virtually unscathed when a collision totaled his grandmother's car.
"I cried all that day, imagining what would have happened if I hadn't purchased that seat," Krista says.
"When Seat Belts Are Not Enough," in the November 1999 issue of Reader's Digest magazine, urges parents across America to join Krista Baker, and act before it's too late.
Check in with www.readersdigest.com. for safety-seat checkup locations, product-recall news and other information.
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