IS YOUR CHILD BEING PUT IN SAFETY SEAT CORRECTLY?

In less than a decade, the United States has gone from a nation where few people wore seat belts to one where 63 percent of those driving the nation's streets and highways use them. As a result, the U.S. Transportation Department reported in 1992 that traffic fatalities were at their lowest in 30 years.

The dramatic turnaround in the use of seat belts can be credited to several factors, the most important of which was adoption in 1984 by New York of the first mandatory seat-belt law. Since then, 42 states, including Missouri and Illinois, have adopted seat-belt requirements.

Among requirements in most states, including Missouri and Illinois, is that children under a certain age 4 in Missouri be restrained in a child safety seat. Today marks the start of Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week, established to draw attention to the fact that car crashes still are a major cause of death and injury for children.

Despite the fact that most states have a child-restraint laws, more than 700 children 4 and under are killed and 48,400 injured each year in vehicle accidents. Those numbers are far too high considering seat belts and child-restraint seats are proven lifesavers, provided they are used correctly.

And therein may lie the problem. The Safe Kids Coalition of Missouri did observational surveys that found that 80 percent of Missourians were using child-safety seats incorrectly. That's an alarmingly high percentage.

Studies have found that the two minutes it takes to correctly harness a child in an approved child safety seat reduces the risk of death or hospitalization of a child by 70 percent.

With those statistics in mind, we urge parents and others who transport children to learn how to correctly put a child in a safety seat and to always use one. If you don't know how to use one find out. You can call the Safe Kids Coalition locally at 651-5815, and someone will explain to you how to properly use the seat.

It's senseless for a child to be injured or killed simply because the responsible party did not properly put him in a child seat.