Until recently, safety experts recommended that children remain in rear-facing car seats, in the back seats of cars, until they are at least one year old and twenty pounds. (No state, including Virginia, requires that children sit in rear-facing car seats after reaching their first birthday or weighing twenty pounds.) Recently, however, the American Academy of Pediatrics  recommended that children remain in the back seat in rear-facing car seats until their second birthday.  Why? Because it’s safer.

I would have thought that parents would want to do whatever they could to keep their child safe, even if it meant they would be inconvenienced. Evidently, I was wrong.

According to today’s front-page article in the Washington Post, parents are irate because “toddlers can’t take another year of riding backward,” even though evidence is that children younger than two years are about 75% more likely to die or suffer serious injury if they are front-facing.

I think that the “they’re legs are scrunched up” argument is baloney — children’s legs are fine — and the “they’re so antsy in rear-facing” is, too — an antsy toddler is going to be antsy whether forward or rear facing.

I’m calling parents out. The objecting parents REALLY want to turn the seats around so that the driver and front passenger seats can go back farther — so the grownups can be more comfortable. It’s a comfort issue. I know it’s inconvenient for tall parents in smaller cars, but, read Why Rear-Facing Is Safest and think again before you make the wrong decision for your child.  It’s only a year. Don’t take the chance.

For more information about keeping your child safe, in cars and elsewhere, get my new book, When the Bough Breaks, a parent’s guide to keeping your child safe. Send an email to Janelle @RohrstaffLaw.com, call us at 703-260-6070, or contact us through our website, RohrstaffLaw.com, and request your free copy.

Injury lawyer gives 14 tips for protecting your kids in the car – let’s  prevent auto accidents

The new teen driving law in Michigan is a move in the right direction for May’s “National Youth Traffic Safety Month.” During the month of May,  the National Organizations for Youth Safety supports a number of projects to protect teen drivers and prevent car accidents. These include  traffic safety education projects, supporting local law enforcement and promoting legislation to protect teen drivers (statistically, teen drivers are by age group, the most dangerous and the most likely to cause a car accident, followed by elderly drivers).

As Michigan personal injury lawyers who concentrate on helping people injured in car accidents, we want to stress the importance of Youth Traffic Safety Month. The following statistics are grim, but point to a tremendous need to tighten safety for teen drivers and children riding as passengers.

•    The number one cause of accidental death for children ages 0-15 in Michigan is auto accidents.

•    In 2008, car accidents and truck accidents in Michigan injured 5,094 children and killed 39.

•    The danger is even greater for teens and young drivers: in 2008, car crashes killed 196 16-24-year-olds and injured 18,617.

•    To put that in perspective, three out of five accidental deaths for 16- to- 24 year-olds are due to motor vehicle accidents.

– Source, Michigan Traffic Crash Facts, Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

How can we help to save lives? Here are14 tips for protecting young children in the car and teen drivers. I hope these safety tips will help us prevent car accidents and save lives.

1. Secure your infant under the age of 1 and less than 20 lbs in a rear-facing car seat in your car or truck’s back seat.

2. Deactivate the front passenger airbag if a rear-facing car seat must be secured in your car or truck’s front seat.

3. Secure your toddler (1 year or older and 20 lbs or more) in a forward-facing car seat in your vehicle’s back seat.

4. Secure children 4 to 7 years old and under 4 foot 9 inches in height in a booster seat in your car or truck’s back seat.

5. Make sure your child’s safety and booster seat is properly installed. Use the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Child Safety Seat Inspection Station Locator and find a certified technician who will inspect your child seat and show you how to correctly install it.

6. Ensure there have been no manufacturer recalls for your child safety or booster seat by consulting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “Child Restraint Recall Campaign Listing.” It lists all child restraint recalls from 1990 to present by manufacturer.

7. Children 8 to 16 years old (and older) or children who are taller than 4 feet 9 inches should wear a properly adjusted seat belt.

8. Model safe behavior for children riding in your car or truck by wearing your seat belt and avoiding distracted driving behaviors, such as talking on your cell phone while driving, texting while driving, etc.

9. Secure all children 12 years old and younger in the rear-seat of your vehicle to avoid potential injury from a deployed airbag, should a car accident occur.

10. Stay off the road if you’ve been drinking alcohol.

12. Refuse to allow children to ride in a vehicle driven by someone who has been drinking alcohol.

13. Drive within the speed limit.

14. Drive a safe car or truck. Consult the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 5-Star Safety Rating system to discover the crash worthiness and rollover safety of your car or truck.

For more child safety tips and Michigan resources for your kids, order a free copy of Michigan Auto Law’s book – How to Keep Your Children Safe – Simple Steps to Protect Your Loved Ones From Hidden Dangers.   This book is a compilation put together by the injury lawyers in my office and covers lessons from helping people who have lived with the injury or loss of a child.

- Steve Gursten is one of the nation’s top injury lawyers handling auto accident lawsuits. He is head of Michigan Auto Law and has received the highest verdict in the state for a car accident or truck accident victim in 2008, 2009 and 2010, according to Michigan Lawyers Weekly.

Summer 2011 has not even yet arrived, but a child has already died from hyperthermia. (Hyperthermia is the term for what happens when a body overheats and cannot regulate its temperature after being exposed to extreme heat.)

In August 2009, I posted a story about a child who died in a daycare van in Richmond, Virginia, when the driver forgot he was in the back and left him in the van all day. According to Safe Kids USA, 40 children died of hyperthermia in 2010, the largest number since records have been kept.

These may seem silly, but they are not. Here are some tips from Safe Kids USA for preventing hyperthermia:

1. Dial 911 immediately if you see an unattended child in a car. EMS professionals are trained to determine if a child is in trouble.
2. Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle, even with the window slightly open.
3. Place a cell phone, smartphone, purse, briefcase, gym bag or whatever is to be carried from the car, on the floor in front of a child in a backseat. This triggers adults to see children when they open the rear door and reach for their belongings.
4. Set your cell phone or Blackberry reminder to be sure you dropped your child off at day care.
5. Set your computer calendar program, such as Outlook, to ask, “Did you drop off at daycare today?”
6. Have a plan that if your child is late for daycare that you will be called within a few minutes. Be especially careful if you change your routine for dropping off little kids at day care.
7. Teach children not to play in any vehicle.
8. Lock all vehicle doors and trunk after everyone has exited the vehicle – especially at home. Keep keys out of children’s reach. Cars are not playgrounds or babysitters.
9. Check vehicles and trunks FIRST if a child goes missing.

You think you don’t need these tips and such a thing would NEVER happen to you? Sadly, a child was found dead in a car in March in Texas when her mother forgot she was in the back seat and left her in the car all day.

Forward-facing models should all have a 5-point restraint harness.  Children should stay in this model until at least 40 pounds, but can usually fit until 65 pounds.  These are especially helpful if you have a restless child who might try to get out of the seat belt.

When you think your child might be ready to move to a booster seat, be sure to test it out first.  If they fit, their legs should not stick out straight and they should not slouch or slide forward in the seat.  Once again, keep you child in the forward-facing car seat for as long as possible — it’s safer.
Booster seats are the newest addition to child car safety.  Most likely you didn’t use a booster seat when you were a kid.  Seat belts are designed for adults, not for children, so children need to be boosted into a higher position so that the seat belt can do its job correctly.   

Children need to be in a booster seat until they reach a height of 4’9”.  At this height, the seat belt will fall correctly on the child as to protect them in a crash.  Once again, there are multiple types of booster seats.  There are full backed seats that resemble a forward facing seat and there are half booster seats which only have a bottom portion.  In deciding which one to purchase for your child, you should consider factors such as support while sleeping in the car and the height of the seats in your car.  The booster should position the child so that the seat belt falls on the hips, not the stomach, and the collarbone, not the neck.  Once they reach 4’9”, the belt should fit properly without any additional support.  Even once they no longer need a booster seat, children though should stay in the back seat until they reach 13 years old.

Post a comment to let us know how your child has grown into her various types of car seats.

Children from birth to age one should ride in a rear facing car seat.

The minimum age to turn a child around to a forward facing car seat is one year and 20 pounds.  However, your childshould stay rear facing as long as the seat allows, usually up to around 30 pounds.  Rear facing is the safest position for a child.

There are two main types of rear facing seats.  The first is infant-only seats which allow the seat to be removed without disturbing a sleeping child.  They include a mount that remains firmly secured in the car and a carrier that snaps in an out.  Often, the carrier attaches to a stroller for optimal mobility.

The second kind is a convertible model.  These are able to hold the child from birth to about age four or five by converting from a rear facing infant seat to a front facing toddler seat.

Once again, the child should not be transferred to the front facing position until he/she reaches the maximum weight for the rear facing position.  The plus for these models is that they can be used for a long time, but the down side is that it is difficult to remove a sleeping infant without waking them.

Whether you are using a convertible model or a uniquely front-facing model, a child should move to this model only once he outgrows the rear facing model, usually around 30 pounds and at least one year of age.

I’ll post more later this week. Post a comment to let me know what your experiences have been with these kinds of seats.

Sure, we had seatbelts and car seats in our cars when we were kids, but how many times did you double buckle with your friends or siblings or ride backwards in the back of the station wagon?  Attempts to reduce the number of preventable highway deaths have prompted authorities to pass more stringent guidelines on the safety measures required for children riding in automobiles.

These guidelines are based on the height, weight, and age of the child in order to best secure the child in case of a collision. However, all of these new rules can be confusing.

• When do I use the next sized seat?

• How long does my child have to ride in the back seat?

• What is the difference between the different types of seats and belts?

Although you have to work at finding them, there are fairly clear guidelines about which type of seat you should use for your child based on their age, height and weight.  Here are a few tips to get you started.

•• The first step is a rear-facing, 5-point harness child safety seat for newborns and infants.

•• At about one year of age, your child will “age up” to forward-facing child safety seats.  These maintain the 5-point harness, but allow the child to sit in an upright position.  These are the two safest seats and children should stay in them as long as possible.

••  School age children should use booster seats to position them correctly in the seat belt until they reach a height of 4’9”.

We’ll explore each stage in the process of moving your child from one seat to another in more depth, because each one has slight nuances that can be confusing. I’ll publish several more postings with additional information in the next few days. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from anyone who has experiences, good or bad, with buying, installing and using car seats for their children.