Child Passenger Safety: Fact Sheet

Motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the United States.1 But many of these deaths can be prevented. Placing children in age- and size-appropriate car seats and booster seats reduces serious and fatal injuries by more than half.2

How big is the problem?

• In the United States during 2009, 1,314 children ages 14 years and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and approximately 179,000 were injured.2
• One CDC study found that, in one year, more than 618,000 children ages 0-12 rode in vehicles without the use of a child safety seat  or booster seat or a seat belt at least some of the time.3

What are the risk factors?

• More than two-thirds of fatally injured children were killed while riding with a drinking driver.4
• Restraint use among young children often depends upon the driver’s seat belt use. Almost 40% of children riding with unbelted drivers were themselves unrestrained.5
• Child restraint systems are often used incorrectly. One study found that 72% of nearly 3,500 observed car and booster seats were misused in a way that could be expected to increase a child’s risk of injury during a crash.6

How can injuries to children in motor vehicles be prevented?

• Child safety seats reduce the risk of death in passenger cars by 71% for infants, and by 54% for toddlers ages 1 to 4 years.2
• There is strong evidence that child safety seat laws, safety seat distribution and education programs, community-wide education and enforcement campaigns, and incentive-plus-education programs are effective in increasing child safety seat use.7
• According to researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, for children 4 to 7 years, booster seats reduce injury risk by 59% compared to seat belts alone.8
• Child passengers should never be seated in front of an airbag.  Airbags can injure or kill children in a crash that might otherwise have been survivable.