Highway Safety Leaders Commend DaimlerChrysler's Leadership on Child Safety

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 -- The following statement is for attribution to Barbara Harsha, Executive Director of the National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives (NAGHSR):

We are extremely pleased with today's announcement of a major new educational campaign to promote child passenger safety by the DaimlerChrysler Corporation and its coalition of safety partners. Over time, the new federal requirement for LATCH (Lower Anchors and Tethers for CHildren) will greatly reduce child injuries and deaths from traffic crashes. The challenge that the safety community faces is ensuring that parents and caregivers understand that while LATCH makes the instillation of child safety seats easier and greatly increases the likelihood that seats are properly installed; it does not solve all mistakes. Inspections by certified child passenger safety seat technicians are still needed. It is also important to note that non-LATCH seats, when installed and used properly, are just as effective as LATCH seats.

DaimlerChrysler's leadership and financial commitment will help us communicate these important messages to parents and caretakers. We commend DaimlerChrysler for being such a good corporate citizen and look forward to working with them and the federal government to get the message out about LATCH and child passenger safety.

State highway safety offices are very proud of their role in reducing fatalities for children in traffic crashes to their lowest level since record keeping began in 1975. However, we will not become complacent as more work remains to be done. Despite our progress, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that four out of five child safety seats are installed incorrectly. DaimlerChrysler's commitment today will help us educate parents and caregivers to the proper installation of these seats which will clearly save lives."

NAGHSR is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of states, territories, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Indian Nation. Its members are appointed by their governors to administer federal and state highway safety funds and implement state highway safety plans. For more information, contact Jonathan Adkins at (202) 789-0942, e-mail jadkins@statehighwaysafety.org or visit http://www.statehighwaysafety.org .

CONTACT: Barbara Harsha of National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives, +1-202-789-0942