Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Airbags Can Kill Infants

Automobile airbags can kill infants and small children. Have I got your attention?

Forgive me for starting my column so abruptly, but I want to impress upon those of you who transport young children the importance of securing infant carriers and child car seats in the back seat of a car or van, particularly, if the vehicle is equipped with a passenger-side airbag.

Crash tests show that babies in rear-facing infant carriers located in the passenger seat may suffer, even fatal, head injuries when an airbag depoys.

A rear-facing safety seat should never be placed in a front seat. If an infant carrier or safety seat must be placed in a front seat, say, in the case of a truck push the seat back as far as possible. The rear seat is also the best place for car seats used by older and larger children, as well as infant carriers.

One recent television report attributed 22 child deaths nationally within the past nine years, to front seat airbags, which eject at a speed of about 200 mph, that's twice the speed of a good major league fastball.

Passenger-side airbags will be manadatory for cars beginning with the 1998 models, and the following year for trucks.

Before the current concern about the airbag as an occassional safety hazard, traffic safety experts already advised belting child and infant restraints in the middle of the rear seat, providing a margin of safety from side-impact crashes and flipovers, as well as head-on collisions.

Arkansas law requires that all children younger than age five be properly restrained while in a motor vehicle. Children younger than age four and weighing less than 40 pounds must be restrained in a federally approved child safety seat.

Even when an adult is protected by an airbag, he or she should wear a safety belt to keep as far as possible from an inflating airbag and should move the seat back as far as possible for the same reason.

In a survey conducted for the Arkansas Department of Health in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 98 percent of Arkansans with young children said they always properly restrained a child in a vehicle. But by actual observation in a traffic survey conducted a few years ago, barely half of such children were found to be restrained.

Using 1993 data, an unrestrained Arkansas child yuounger than five years who was in an accident was nearly nine times more likely to die than one secured in a safety seat, according to a Center for Health Statistics analysis of state Highway and Transportation Department data.

Nationally, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for children 5-15 years old, and in Arkansas in 1994, it was the leading cause of death of persons 1-15. That year, 58 of 194 deaths for children that age were attributable to motor vehicle crashes. In one recent year, more than 360,000 children were injured in crashes nationally, and at least another 3,200 died.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) says that 250 of those deaths could have been avoided had the children been properly secured. A properly installed and used child safety seat provides very effective crash protection for a child. The CDC estimated that, nationally, child safety seats and safety belts saved the lives of about 1,300 infants and toddlers during one eight-year stretch.

If your front-seat safety belts are motorized or attached to the front door, be sure to follow the belt and safety seat placement instructions that are outlined in the vehicle owner's manual.

If the latch plate on a safety belt slides freely to adjust the fit, then a locking clip must be used. New car seats usually come with a locking clip as a free accessory.

Use only child safety seats that meet DOT requirements. Look for this label on the safety seat. "This child restraint system conforms to all applicable Federal motor vehicle safety standards." The stamp of the manufacturing should be after January 1, 1981.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that an adult can safely hold a child. Even in a low-speed collision, a child can be pulled from an adult's arms with a force of 300 pounds or greater.

Some hospitals and insurance companies have car-seat lease programs.

Not all car safety seats are equal, and not all safety seats fits cars equally. A shopping guide for child safety seats is available free from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NTS-13 400 7th Street, S.W., Washington DC 20590.