The mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary were beyond senseless. Nearly a month after the tragedy millions around the world are still stunned by the horror that robbed Newtown, Connecticut, of dozens of its most precious residents.
Of those millions, many are parents, who cried with Sandy Hook victims’ families in the days following the horrific shootings. Ironically, some of those same moms and dads, who clung tightly to their own children in the hours and days after the murders, are the same ones who place their kids in jeopardy when they get behind the wheel of their vehicle.
According to a recent study, an alarming number of parents in the United States do not properly restrain their children in car seats. Consequently, their kids are highly susceptible to being injured or killed in an accident.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor observed nearly 22,000 children and found that just 3 percent of kids between ages 1 and 3 were placed in a proper, rear-facing car seat. What’s more, the study’s author notes that just 10 percent of 8- to 10-year-old children were properly restrained in a booster seat.
Buckling up doesn’t take much and considering that more than 140,000 children are rushed to the emergency room each year as a result of car accidents, it doesn’t pay to ignore guidelines for proper child safety restraint in vehicles.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that until age 2, children should sit in rear-facing child safety seats, while children over age 2 should sit in front-facing seats featuring five-point harnesses until their weight and height exceeds the car seat’s capacity. In addition, booster seats should be used for kids until they are 57 inches tall, which, according to the AAP, is the height of an average 11-year-old. Finally, experts say kids shouldn’t sit in the front seat until they’re 13 years old.
I’ve shared my opinion on this easy save in a previous post. With winter in full swing across the country, now is an especially critical time to protect your children while driving on wet or icy roads. Do yourself a favor by following the experts’ advice (and in many cases, the law) and properly restrain your child before you get behind the wheel. After all, there’s little sense in mourning the loss of another parent’s son or daughter if you’re not doing everything possible to protect your own from tragedy.