Miami Herald Blog….
Feds: Florida has the weakest child passenger safety law in the country
The National Transportation Safety Board is calling on Florida and 20 other states to toughen their child passenger safety laws. The NTSB wants child restraint laws to cover kids up to 8.
Florida, “with the most lenient child passenger safety law in the nation,” the NTSB says, only requires child safety seats for children age 3 years or younger. Other states go up to 4, 5 and 6.
Tougher laws are “critical if we are serious about keeping our youngest travelers safe on the roadways,” said board chair Deborah Hersman.
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Florida child-seat laws among nation’s most lenient, NTSB says
By Eliot Kleinberg, The Palm Beach Post
6:14 PM EDT, September 18, 2010
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Florida’s law requiring child car restraints only up to age 3 is the most lenient in the country, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
And that means thousands of children between the ages of 4 and 8 riding on the state’s roads are needlessly at risk, according to the Washington-based agency.
The NTSB last week cited Florida as one of 21 states, plus two territories, not meeting the agency’s 1996 recommendation that restraints be required up to the age of 8 .
It called on the 23 legislatures to pass laws by next year that meet the NTSB guidelines, as eight states did in 2009.
“This action is critical if we are serious about keeping our youngest travelers safe on the roadways,” NTSB Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman said in the statement.
In Palm Beach County, several children have been killed in recent years after they bounced around in cars, or were thrown from them, when they were traveling without car seats or were not properly secured in them.
In March, a Boynton Beach man was charged with vehicular homicide in a 2009 crash in which his sport utility vehicle rolled on southbound Interstate 95 in Boca Raton and his 3-year-old son, who by law should have been in a child seat, was thrown from the vehicle, authorities said.
According to the NTSB, Florida, Arizona, and South Dakota are the only three states with no booster seat provision for children older than 4 .
But for nearly a decade, attempts to expand the Sunshine State’s law to add booster seats for kids from 4 to 8 have failed.
A Florida House bill this year, which sought to add booster seats for kids from 4 to 7, with exceptions for height, died in committee.
A separate bill was passed by the Senate 33 to 2 but a companion House bill also died in committee.
A 2009 attempt also failed.
“We support the legislation, and have been quite disappointed that it has never passed,” Kelly Powell, program director of Safe Kids Palm Beach County, said Monday.
A bill did pass in 2001, but then-Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed it.
“Florida would have been one of the first in the nation to pass a booster seat law,” said State Rep. Richard L. Steinberg, D-Miami Beach, a member of the House Roads, Bridges & Ports Policy Committee and co-sponsor of this year’s bill.
He said Bush worried that millions of out-of-state tourists wouldn’t be in compliance when they drove across the state line, and said the governor also stood on the principle of parental responsibility.
But, “we have this abyss of children we know are not properly or safely secured,” Steinberg said. “That’s absurd.”
Rep. Gary Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral, who headed the House Roads panel this year but did not support the bill, said it was one of many related to driving that came through his committee — including one banning texting while driving, which did pass.
He agreed with Bush that laws aren’t always the answer.
“In the broader picture, people are beginning to resist government intrusion in their lives and their vehicles,” Aubuchon said.
Added Ann Howard, spokesperson for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles: “You don’t have to wait for laws to be implemented to protect yourself and your family.
“We recommend folks keep their children in car seats or booster seats until the age of 7, at least,” she said. “If your child is short, keep them in the seat longer.”
Copyright © 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Good morning, Ladies.
I just received a phone call from Senator Thad Altman. As you know, he’s worked the booster seat issues for many years, beginning with his service in the Florida House. He is going to file the bill again in the Senate and he feels pretty good about it this year given the press the issue has received lately.
I explained to him that there was some hesitation among SPAC members to take up this issue again. He asked that we not give up on it and would really like us to work with him again this year.
We had a great conversation about the history of the issue and some of the roadblocks, which I don’t want to go into, but suffice it to say that our main roadblock will NOT be coming back to the Legislature thanks to term limits.
He also wants to look into some foster care issues and plans on doing some sort of foster-care related issue this Session.
I think we can really benefit with this partnership and I ask that you please consider allowing the booster seat bill to remain a top priority.
Thanks,
Melissa Mckinley
I have listed the full summary of 2009 traffic citations, however one of the items really stuck out to me:
K. Seatbelt and Child restraint citations (total) in the state rose from 312,366 in 2008 to 374,641 in 2009, an increase of 19.94%.
FINDINGS
2009 UNIFORM TRAFFIC CITATION REPORT
Summary of Total Violations and Dispositions
A. The total number of citations written in the state fell from 5,210,855 in 2008 to 4,875,429 in 2009, a decline of 6.44%.
B. The total number of dispositions in the state fell from 4,277,898 in 2008 to 4,087,869 in 2009, a decline of 4.44%.
C. The total number of pending dispositions in the state fell from 932,987 in 2008 to 787,560 in 2009, a decline of 15.59%.
Summary of State Total DUI Violations and DUI Convictions
D. Violations for DUI in the state fell from 64,654 in 2008 to 63,019 in 2009, a decline of 2.53%.
E. DUI convictions in the state fell from 38,664 in 2008 to 36,872 in 2009, a decline of 4.63%.
F. The total number of pending DUI dispositions fell from 16,787 in 2008 to 16,554 in 2009, a decrease of 1.39%.
Summary of State Total Seat Belt and Child Restraint Citations*
G. For unbelted drivers, citations in the state rose from 249,667 in 2008 to 302,898 in 2009, an increase of 21.32%.
H. For unbelted passengers under the age of 18, citations in the state rose from 19,031 in 2008 to 20,285 in 2009, an increase of 6.59%.
I. For unbelted passengers over the age of 18, citations in the state rose from 23,440 in 2008 to 32,285 in 2009, an increase of 37.73%.
J. Child restraint citations in the state fell from 20,228 in 2008 to 19,173 in 2009, a decrease of 5.22%.
K. Seatbelt and Child restraint citations (total) in the state rose from 312,366 in 2008 to 374,641 in 2009, an increase of 19.94%
*The Seatbelt and Child restraint citation data above was drawn from the detail report including all citations written. Years prior to 2008 included guilty dispositions only.
Electronic Citations*
L. 201 of 368 (54.6%) Florida Law Enforcement Agencies are using Electronic Citation writing systems in their vehicles
M. The number of citations written electronically decreased from 2,219,475 in 2008 to 2,079,431 in 2009 to; a decline of 6.31%
N. 42.7% of all citations written were produced electronically in 2009.
*Electronic Citation data is from Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers
http://www.flhsmv.gov/reports/2009UTCStats/Seatbelt_and_Child_Restraint_Citations.pdf
Check out the detailed report. I posted the summary of the entire reports, but highlighted the child restraint bullet point. This website is the 2009 Seatbelt and Child Restraint Convictions report.
When reading this report, I remembered something Harvey said during our training Sunday, “Show me how many children could have been saved if this law would have been passed.” This report doesn’t satisfy his request, but it does show the 2009 instances of violation of the current law (3 and under in a car seat- correct me if I have the wrong age).
If people can’t even follow the current law, how are we to believe parents are voluntarily putting their child in a booster seat after 3?
I’ll try to find some crash statistics.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-09-booster09_st_N.htm
State booster-seat laws reduce children’s injuries
Updated 8/8/2010 9:04 PM
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Booster-seat laws can sharply reduce the number of children injured in car accidents, a new study finds.
Traffic injuries among kids ages 4 to 6 dropped 18% in New York after a state law requiring booster seats took effect in 2005, according to a study published in Pediatrics today. The study is the first to compare traffic injury rates before and after the implementation of a state booster-seat law.
Researchers saw no decrease in injury rates among younger children. They weren’t affected by the new law, because car seats are already required for them.
Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia require booster seats, which protect kids after they outgrow infant car seats but are still too small to be protected by a seat belt, says Lorrie Walker of advocacy group Safe Kids USA. Arizona, Florida and South Dakota do not have such laws.
The results should persuade parents to buckle kids into booster seats, regardless of laws that vary by state, Walker says.
“These state laws are all different, but the law of physics is the same across the board,” Walker says. “What most parents don’t understand is that all that safety equipment in a car has been designed to fit adults. The booster seat is an adapter that takes that adult equipment and adapts it to the size of the child.”
Depending on their size, some kids may be ready to graduate from the booster seat at age 8, while others needs them until age 11, Walker says. Kids should ride in a back seat until age 13.
Regular seat belts fail to protect children who weigh less than 80 to 100 pounds and who are under 4-feet-9, Walker says. That’s because these kids are too short for the diagonal strap to fit securely around their shoulder and for the other belt to fit low and tight across the hips.
Keeping your children safe
Kids need booster seats until they can do three things, Walker says.
•They should be tall enough so that the seat belts rest against a hard, bony surface — such as the hips and collarbone — not a soft spot such as the stomach.
•Kids should be able to bend their knees at the edge of the seat, even while sitting up straight.
•And they should be able to maintain that position — without slouching or lying down — for the entire trip.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/126/3/484?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=booster+seats&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
OBJECTIVE The goal was to examine the association between the New York State (NYS) upgraded child restraint law (UCRL) implemented in 2005 and the traffic injury rate among 4- to 6-year-old children in New York State.
METHODS A before/after comparison study of population-based, traffic injury rates for 4- to 6-year-old children, using 0- to 3-year-old children as a comparison group, was performed. The effects of UCRL on injury rates among 0- to 3-year-old and 4- to 6-year-old motor vehicle passengers were estimated by using monthly injury count data from the NYS Department of Motor Vehicles Accident Information System.
RESULTS Children 4 to 6 years of age experienced an 18% reduction in traffic injury rate (adjusted rate ratio [aRR]: 0.82 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.79–0.85]) after UCRL implementation, whereas the injury rate for children 0 to 3 years of age, who were not directly affected by the UCRL, did not change appreciably (aRR: 0.95 [95% CI: 0.90–0.99]). In Poisson regression analysis, the aRR for injury for 4- to 6-year-old children was 1.06 (95% CI: 0.92–1.22]) with adjustment for monthly child restraint use rates, which reveals that the significant reduction in the injury rate among 4- to 6-year-old children was mainly attributable to the 72% increase in the child restraint use rate after UCRL implementation (from 29% before UCRL implementation to 50% after implementation).
CONCLUSIONS This is the first study comparing traffic injury rates for booster seat–aged children before and after implementation of the booster seat law in a single state.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/childps/BoosterSeatProgress/images/BSProgressReport.pdf
Improving the Safety of
Older-Child Passengers
A Progress Report on Reducing Deaths and Injuries Among 4- to 8-Year-Old Child Passengers.
November 2005
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811148.PDF
Child Restraint Use in 2008- Demographic Results
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/childps/ParentGuide2005/index.htm
A Parent’s Guide to Buying and Using Booster Seats