Study: Booster seat laws help save lives
Booster seats save lives, and so do state laws requiring young children to ride in them, according to anew study.
Booster seats are aimed at kids who are too big for traditional car seats but too small to be properly restrained by seat belts alone. The seats boost these kids up so that a car’s shoulder belt secures them in a safe way. But their use is far from widespread: Only 48 percent of 4- and 5- yearolds use them, along with 35 percent of 6- and 7- yearolds, according to a 2008 survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Considering that car crashes are the No. 3 cause of death for people ages 1 to 18, booster seats have the potential to save many lives. So researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and the Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention outside Boston examined National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on all car crashes in theU. S. from1999 to 2009 in which someone died.
During that decade, 47 states and the District of Columbia passed laws on booster seat use. In the years before those laws were passed, the fatality rate from car crashes among 4- and 5- year- olds was 5.7 deaths per 100,000 kids. In the years after the laws went into effect, the death rate dropped to 4.2 deaths per 100,000 kids.
The trend was similar for older children. Among 6- year- olds, the fatality rate dropped from 2.3 to 1.5 deaths per100,000kids, the researchers found. Passage of booster- seat laws did not translate into a statistically significant reduction in death rates for 7- year- olds.