Automotive Occupant Restraints Council Supports Effort To Protect Children
18 May 1999
Automotive Occupant Restraints Council Supports Effort To Protect Child Motor Vehicle PassengersLEXINGTON, Ky., May 17 -- The Automotive Occupant Restraints Council (AORC) today announced its support of a national effort this Memorial Day week to protect children by stepping up enforcement of child passenger safety laws. Thousands of law enforcement agencies across the nation are conducting the Operation ABC Mobilization: America Buckles Up Children -- the enforcement effort on drivers who don't buckle up children. The Council joins with its members nationwide to endorse the intensive 50-state lifesaving initiative. "Although only law enforcement officers can write tickets, we stand firmly behind the lifesaving message each ticket delivers," said George Kirchoff, AORC president. "The Council and its 45 member companies are not only employers, we're parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles who want to protect our children." AORC is a non-profit organization representing domestic and foreign manufacturers and suppliers of automotive air bags, safety belts, seating systems and their components. "AORC has a long standing active commitment to increasing safety belt use nationally," said Kirchoff. "The data show that states with primary belt use laws benefit from significantly increased belt use and that translates to lives saved and injuries reduced." A survey recently completed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that 19 million more Americans buckled up in 1998. If these millions of people continue to use safety belts, an estimated 1,500 lives will be saved. "AORC and its member companies urge zero tolerance for unbuckled children and hope officers can expand the last Mobilization's success to save even more lives. This will send a clear message to America: The law requires children to be buckled up at all times. No exceptions. No excuses," Kirchoff said. Officers will be enforcing adult belt laws during the Operation ABC Mobilization. A recent study in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found, "Driver restraint use was the strongest predictor of child restraint use ... a restrained driver was three times more likely to restrain a child." And, according to surveys by the NHTSA, when a driver buckles up, children are buckled up 87 percent of the time. However, when a driver is unbuckled, child restraint use drops to only 24 percent. As part of their enforcement activities throughout the Operation ABC Mobilization, officers will distribute information on air bag safety and the importance of making sure children 12 years old and younger ride properly buckled in the back seat. CHILD PASSENGER SAFETY FACT SHEET * Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for all children. In 1997, motor vehicle crashes took the lives of 2,087 child occupants ages 0 to 15 and injured nearly 320,000 more. * Every day, an average of seven children ages 14 and under die and another 908 are injured in motor vehicle related crashes. * In 1997, six of every ten children who died in crashes were unbelted. Tragically, nearly half of these children would be alive today if only they had been properly restrained. * Child safety seats, when properly installed, reduce the risk of death by 69 percent for infants and 47 percent for toddlers. * Of the children under age five who died in motor vehicle crashes in 1997, more than half were completely unrestrained. Of those who were restrained, 29 percent were not in age and size appropriate safety seats, but rather buckled in an adult seat belt. * Restraint use decreases significantly after an infant outgrows its child safety seat. While restraint use for infants is 85 percent, restraint use for children 5-15 decreases to 64 percent. * According to a recent survey of parents who have infants under one year of age, those who do not always buckle up are 50 percent more likely to improperly restrain infants in the front seat. * There are one third fewer fatalities to children who ride in the back seat. The best way to protect children from crash-related injuries as well as from risks that air bags may pose, is to properly restrain children ages 12 and under in the back seat. INFORMATION SOURCE: The Airbag and Seat Belt Safety Campaign, Washington, D.C.