Parents often don’t put kids in booster seats when carpooling
Practical obstacles, plus peer pressure
Parents who buckle children into protective booster seats when riding in the family car are often not as conscientious when carpooling, a study finds.
Overall, 76% of 681 parents of kids ages 4 to 8 in a nationally representative survey say they use a booster seat for their own child, but only 55% insist on it when driving other children. And though 64% carpool, 21% do not insist on booster seats when their child is riding with another driver, says the study in the February Pediatrics, out today.
The finding is “disturbing because close to 70% of parents say they carpool children other than their own, and when they do, they’re often failing to use booster seats,” says lead study author Michelle Macy, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Why do parents abandon safety seats when carpooling? Practical barriers, including limited vehicle space and difficulties making arrangements with other drivers, were often mentioned, Macy says. Peer pressure is also a likely factor, she says — “not only pressure on parents but the peer pressure that kids start to feel” during the early school years.
But using a booster seat reduces risk of injury by 50% com- pared with seat belts, says Macy, an emergency physician.
Designed for children who have outgrown their forward- facing car seat until they reach 57 inches tall, booster seats give kids “the right posture so that an adult seat belt can be properly positioned,” she says. “Wearing a poorly positioned belt puts children at greater risk of injuries to abdominal organs, spine bones and the spine itself.”
Most states require parents to use a booster seats for toddlers, often until children are 8 years old, but laws vary from state to state. For example, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurance industry-funded safety group, says Florida allows adult seat belts for ages 4 to 5, while Wyoming says kids ages 4 to 8 must be in a “child restraint.” Tennessee requires seats for kids ages 4 to 8 and under 4-foot-9.
Booster seat recommendations revised last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics place more emphasis on height than age, and they encourage parents to use a belt-positioning booster seat until a child reaches 57 inches, the height at which proper fit in an adult seat is expected, Macy says.
“No one puts a child on a ride at Disneyland if they don’t meet the height restrictions,” she says. “Parents should have that same attitude when it comes to using adult seat belts.”