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NTSB Chairman Jim Hall Calls for National Booster Seat Law; NC Child Passenger Safety Conference Is Forum for Major Policy Statement

17 January 2001

NTSB Chairman Jim Hall Calls for National Booster Seat Law; NC Child Passenger Safety Conference Is Forum for Major Policy Statement

    GREENSBORO, N.C., Jan. 17 National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) Chairman Jim Hall this morning called upon the US Transportation
Secretary to convene a blue ribbon panel to press for laws that require
children ages 4-8 to use booster seats while traveling in motor 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 in Greensboro.
    Hall's emphatic call to action will stand as one of his final acts as
chairman of the influential NTSB.  He will step down tomorrow 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 seats
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 & 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.
    The conference began Monday with an optional two-day child passenger
safety technical class.  The 50 newly trained technicians joined veteran
checkers for a child passenger safety clinic Tuesday afternoon at Babies 'R Us
in Greensboro.
    North Carolina law requires all children up to age 16 to travel buckled
up, no matter where they sit in the vehicle.  Children up to age 5 and
weighing less than 40 pounds must ride in a correctly installed safety seat --
in the back seat, if the vehicle has an active passenger-side airbag.  Drivers
ticketed for a child passenger safety violation will face two points on their
driver's license.