Child Seat Safety

This fact sheet presents information about LATCH, (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) and provides resources for more information.  Spanish, Black and white, 8.5" x 11", one side.

This report presents findings from a national survey conducted by Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc., pertaining to crash injury and emergency medical services.  Telephone surveys provide self-reported information, which can differ from information collected through direct observation.  Three color, 8.5" x 11", 127 pages.

This document provides information on how to establish a community based inspection station where parents/caregivers can go to learn how to correctly install child safety restraints.  This  booklet defines an inspection station, provides several examples and discusses the key elements and resources necessary.  8.5' x 11", full color, 27 pages.

Reports that present the results, and supporting materials, for a study exploring ways to increase child booster seat use.  The study focused on identifying reasons for non-use of belt-positioning boosters by children of parents with a high school education or less, and obtained parent reactions to interventions that addressed the reasons for non-use.

This report examines factors related to the use and nonuse of booster seats in order to identify strategies to improve the effectiveness of booster seat laws, and summarizes results from a number of project activities. These include::

 An inventory of changes in state child occupant-protection laws since 2002.
 A literature review on the use and nonuse of booster seats.
 An observational survey of booster seat use before and after enactment of a booster seat law in Wisconsin.
 Focus groups with parents and caregivers to assess attitudes, knowledge, understanding, and use of booster seat laws.
 Focus groups with law enforcement officers to assess their attitudes, knowledge, and enforcement of booster seat laws.
 A brainstorming session with experts and law enforcement officers on the challenges facing booster seat enforcement.     

Results of a study to identify solutions to the problem of unrestrained children 5 to 7 years old riding in motor vehicles. It included a literature review, discussions with key informants, a brainstorming session with experts, and focus groups with adults observed transporting unrestrained children. Barriers to restraint use are described, current intervention approaches identified, and recommended strategies provided.

The results of a study designed to identify the best approaches for increasing seat belt use among 8-15 year olds.  The summary report and appendices describe the factors underlying non-use of belts by children 8-15, and relate the reactions of children and parents to intervention approaches generated from that information.
   
IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY:  This is one of the few traffic safety studies that collected information directly from children on what would work best to get children their age to always wear seat belts.  It provides guidance to program professionals regarding targeting strategies, channels of communication, and program elements.
 

The results of a study designed to identify the best approaches for increasing seat belt use among 8-15 year olds.  The summary report and appendices describe the factors underlying non-use of belts by children 8-15, and relate the reactions of children and parents to intervention approaches generated from that information.
   
IMPLICATIONS FOR HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY:  This is one of the few traffic safety studies that collected information directly from children on what would work best to get children their age to always wear seat belts.  It provides guidance to program professionals regarding targeting strategies, channels of communication, and program elements.

This report documents a study of how CRS features, labels, and instructions contribute to CRS installation errors. Task 1A focused on assessing different physical features of 16 convertible CRS, while Task 1B evaluated baseline and modified versions of labels and instructions for two CRS models. For each phase of testing, 32 subjects were recruited based on their education level (high or low) and experience with installing CRS (none or experienced). Each subject was asked to perform four child restraint installations in a 2006 Pontiac G6 sedan. An 18-month-old CRABI anthropometric test device (ATD) weighing 25 lb was used for all installations. Each subject installed two CRS forward-facing (FF), one with LATCH and one with seatbelt, and two CRS rear-facing (RF), one with LATCH and one with the seatbelt. For Task 1A, each subject installed four of the sixteen convertible CRS. For Task 1B, each subject installed a Graco ComfortSport and Evenflo Titan twice, where each CRS had one of eight alternate instruction manuals and one of eight alternate label conditions. After each installation, the experimenter evaluated 42 factors for each installation, such as choice of belt routing path, tightness of installation, and harness snugness.

Please Note - This product can only be obtained by downloading it. 

http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/Crash%20Avoidance/Technical%20Publications/2012/811627.pdf

 

The purpose of this study was to obtain a measure of the current level of misuse of child restraint systems (CRSs) among the general public.  The project focused specifically on forms of misuse that can be expected to raise the risk of injury.  CRS use and critical misuse data were collected in the Fall of 2002.  Overall critical misuse was 72.6 percent. Recommendations are provided for periodic monitoring of CRS misuse, research needs and enforcement education.  8.5" x 11", two color, 55 pages.

This booklet provides information on how to properly secure children in child safety restraint systems (CSRS) and secure CSRSs into school buses.  It provides the basic rules of proper CSRS usage and illustrates the most common mistakes made when installing CSRS in school buses.  4" x 9", four color 14 pages.

This technical report presents results from the 2011 National Survey of the Use of Booster Seats (NSUBS). NSUBS is the only probability-based nationwide child restraint use survey in the United States that observes restraint use and interviews adult occupants to collect race, ethnicity and other data. NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis conducts the NSUBS. The 2011 NSUBS found that 47 percent of 4- to 7-year-old children were restrained in booster seats in 2011 as compared to 41 percent in 2009. Restraint use for all children under 13 increased to 91 percent in 2011. Although there were some indications of premature graduation to restraint types that are not appropriate for children’s age, height, and weight, we see significant improvements in use of appropriate restraint types among children of various categories in 2011 as compared to 2009.

Please Note - This product can only be obtained by downloading it. 

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811718.pdf