Sept. 15, 2011
For Immediate Release
By Linda Waggener, marketing and media relations coordinator
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky.– A child’s car seat safety program is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 30, from 3 to 6 p.m., sponsored by Campbellsville University’s School of Nursing Pediatric Nursing class.
The event, meant to assist parents of children in car seats with safe installation, will be held at the Campbellsville Baptist Church Child Development Center on the lower level with carport availability so it can be held rain or shine.
Games and activities are planned so that it will be fun for kids as it is informative for parents. There will be drawings for a one hundred dollar prize, a fifty-dollar prize and two twenty-five dollar prizes.
Agencies helping with the event will include: the Kentucky State Police, Arrive Alive Taylor County, Kosairs Children’s Hospital, Drive Smart from Bowling Green, members of the Air-Evac team, and the Lake Cumberland Area Development District.
Statistics researched by CU nursing student Latonya Bertram are contributed below:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle crashes are the #1 killer of kids in age groups 1-14. Safe Kids USA says motor vehicle crashes are the #1 cause of unintentional injury-related death for all children 14 and under. While some crashes are unsurvivable, over 57 percent of deaths for children 0-15 were because the child was unrestrained. Many more were improperly restrained. Nationally, the misuse rate for child safety seats is over 80 percent and as high as 95 percent in some areas. The good news is that correct use of car seats and boosters does save lives. Infant seats have been shown to reduce fatal injury by 71 percent, and toddler seats by 54 percent.
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.
• 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.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends booster seats for children until they are at least 8 years of age or 4’9″ tall.
• 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.
• All children ages 12 years and younger should ride in the back seat. Putting children in the back seat eliminates the injury risk of deployed front passenger-side airbags and places children in the safest part of the vehicle in the event of a crash.
• 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.
• Overall, for children less than 16 years, riding in the back seat is associated with a 40% reduction in the risk of serious injury.