Fatal Motor Vehicle Accidents of Child Passengers from Birth Through 4 Years of Age in Washington State

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
During the decade beginning Jan. 1, 1970 and ending Dec. 31, 1979, .apprx. 39,500 child passengers aged 0-4 yr were in motor vehicle accidents reported and investigated in the state of Washington; 148 (0.4%) of the children were killed outright or subsequently died. Of the 39,500 children, .apprx. 6300, or 16%, were wearing some type of safety restraint and only 2, or 1:3150, were killed; 33,200 were not wearing restraints and 146, or 1:227, were killed. Extrapolation of these ratios suggests that if all the children had been wearing restraints, there would have been 93% fewer deaths. A detailed analysis was performed on 39 fatalities for 1977, 1978 and 1979. Fatal accidents involving young children in Washington state usually occurred under ordinary circumstances on dry roads at low speeds during daylight hours and were unrelated to alcohol usage.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: