Critical gaps in child passenger safety practices, surveillance, and legislation: Georgia, 2001

Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death among US children 1 year of age and older. Although age-appropriate child passenger restraint use and back seating position are effective injury prevention strategies, many children 12 years of age and younger ride inappropriately restrained and seated in the front seat. In Georgia and in most states, surveillance of child passenger restraint use is less than optimal. Although child safety seat legislation is 1 of the most effective mechanisms for increasing correct restraint use and back seating position, Georgia's child occupant restraint law, like the laws in most states, falls short of practices recommended by government and child advocacy safety groups. The objective of this study was to document child passenger restraint use and seating position among children aged 0 to 12 years in Georgia and to use these study results to evaluate the efficacy of Georgia's child restraint surveillance and legislation.

In May and June 2001, police roadblocks were used to collect information about child passenger age, restraint use, and seating position.

Data were collected on 1858 children who were riding in 1221 vehicles in 24 different Georgia counties. Results showed that 56% of children were inappropriately restrained and/or in the front seat. The most problematic age groups included infants who were in forward-facing child safety seats (28%) and/or in the front seat (22%); children who were 5 to 8 years of age in car seat belts alone (88%), rather than age- and size-appropriate child safety seats (6%); and children who were 9 to 12 years of age and riding in the front seat (39%). We compared our results with the existing Georgia passenger restraint surveillance system and found that it would have missed 77% of the children in our study who were inappropriately restrained and/or riding in the front seat. In a similar comparison, Georgia's restraint law did not cover over 74% of the children in our study who were riding at risk.

The results of this study highlight 3 important areas for improving child passenger safety: targeted interventions to promote booster seat use and riding in the back seat, expanded child passenger restraint and seating position surveillance, and expanded legislation to mandate booster seat use and back seating position.