CHILD SAFETY SEAT MISUSE PATTERNS IN 4 STATES

Child safety seat misuse is still a concern in the nation. This paper addresses the patterns of child safety seat (CSS) misuse and reports o n the techniques used to effectively collect this data. CSS use and mi suse observations were collected for 5900 target young children (under 27 kg or 60 pounds) in over 4000 vehicles in four states: Mississippi , Missouri, Pennsylvania and Washington. Results showed overall CSS us e for target children was 50.6%. Only 12.8% of these children were unr estrained, with the remainder were restrained in safety belts. Correct CSS use was defined as proper use of all of the following CSS element s: seat direction, vehicle safety belt routing, harness buckle and har ness strap, harness retainer (chest) clip, and locking clip (on safety belt). Overall correct CSS use was 20.5%. For infants (children under 9 kg or 20 pounds), 96.6% were in a CSS and 20.6% of these were corre ctly used. For toddlers (children between 9 and 18 kg or 20 and 40 pou nds), 67.5% were in a CSS and 18.9% of these were correctly used. For pre-school children (between 18 and 27 kg or 40 and 60 pounds), 6.1% w ere in a CSS and 50% of these were correctly used. The strongest posit ive relationship between target child restraint use and CSS proper use was for drivers using safety belts. Other positive relationships were found for the vehicle having air bags, the driver being a family memb er, the child in the middle back seat position, and CSS infrequently r emoved from the vehicle. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.