Kids in the Front Seat

About 500 American children age 4 to 8 die in car crashes every year, according to a new government report. A leading auto safety research organization states that this high rate of deaths is due to parents who do not exercise discipline, or self-discipline, whichever the case may be.

Many parents allow their children to sit in the front seat, even though the back seat is the safest place for anyone to be in a crash. A back seat will also prevent the children from sustaining injuries when air safety bags expand explosively upon impact.

In a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Children aged 4 to 8 years represent a special population for motor-vehicle occupant protection. Having outgrown car safety seats designed for younger passengers, children aged 4 to 8 frequently sit unrestrained or are placed prematurely in adult seat belt systems."

Two-thirds of the fatally injured children in the 4 to 8 age group were found to be riding without restraints. "A child unrestrained in a vehicle is like a little projectile," says Julie Rochma, vice president for communications at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "On impact, the child will keep moving until it hits something hard or is thrown out of the vehicle."

Children need to be properly restrained in specially designed child safety or booster seats. Adult belt systems do not fit young bodies properly, and the shoulder strap can do serious, even fatal damage should the car need to stop quickly.

"Parents complain that they don't want to listen to their kids whine in the back seat," says Eve Whittenberg, a researcher with the Center for Risk Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "But either they can listen to a whine, or they can listen to nothing at all."