Persons using assistive technology might not be able to fully access information in this file. For assistance, please send e-mail to: mmwrq@cdc.gov. Type 508 Accommodation and the title of the report in the subject line of e-mail.
Notice to Readers: National Child Passenger Safety Week, February
11--17, 2007
During 2005, a total of 1,143 motor-vehicle occupants aged
<12 years died in motor-vehicle crashes
(1). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American Academy of Pediatrics, and CDC recommend that
children aged <13 years sit in the back seat of motor vehicles and use age-appropriate restraints. February 11--17 is National
Child Passenger Safety Week, when activities are scheduled to stress the importance of age-appropriate seating for children in
motor vehicles.
Studies indicate that older children are more likely than younger children to sit in a front seat of a motor vehicle
(2,3). One study indicates that approximately 2.2% of children aged
<3 years sit in a front seat, compared with 12.2% of children aged
4--8 years and 33.1% of children aged 9--12 years
(3). Studies that have examined the effects of seating position on injury
risk in motor-vehicle crashes indicate that children have an increased risk for injury when they are seated in the front,
independent of restraint use (3,4). Only 10 states have laws that require children to sit in rear seats when such seats are
available:California, Georgia, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming
(5); ages at which these laws apply vary from <1 to 11 years. On June 1, 2007, the state of Washington will become the only state
that requires children aged <12 years to be seated in a rear seat when such seating is available. Delaware, North Carolina,
and Vermont restrict children from being seated in the front if the child is seated in front of an airbag; age restrictions vary
from <1 to 11 years (5,6). These results underscore the need to combine seating-position regulations with restraint guidelines
to improve the safety of children riding in motor vehicles.
Information about National Child Passenger Safety Week activities and child passenger safety is available from
NHTSA by mail, NHTSA, Office of Communications and Outreach, 400 Seventh St., SW, NTS-21, Washington, DC, 20590;
fax, 202-493-2062; or online, http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov; and from CDC, National Center for Injury Prevention and
Control, at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/childpas.htm. Additional information regarding research and
evidence-based educational materials on child-passenger safety is available from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at
http://www.chop.edu/carseat.
References
US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; National Center for Statistics & Analysis. Fatality
Analysis Reporting System (FARS) web-based encyclopedia. Available at
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov.
Durbin DR, Bhatia E , Holmes JH, et al. Partners for child passenger safety: a unique child-specific crash surveillance system. Accid Anal
Prev 2001;33:407--12.
Durbin DR, Chen I, Smith R, Elliott MR, Winston FK. Effects of seating position and appropriate restraint use on the risk of injury to children
in motor vehicle crashes. Pediatrics 2005;115:e305--9.
Berg MD, Cook L, Corneli HM, Vernon DD, Dean JM. Effect of seating position and restraint use on injuries to children in motor vehicle
crashes. Pediatrics 2000;105:831--5.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text
into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version.
Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or
the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables.
An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800.
Contact GPO for current prices.
**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to
mmwrq@cdc.gov.
