Child Restraint Use and Driver Screening in Fatal Crashes Involving Drugs and Alcohol

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There are reports that the incidence of alcohol-involved crashes has remained stable among fatally injured drivers while drug involvement has increased in recent years.

Fatal Pediatric Motor Vehicle Crashes on U.S. Native American Indian Lands Compared to Adjacent Non-Indian Lands: Restraint Use and Injury by Driver, Vehicle, Roadway and Crash Characteristics

“…Passengers aged 0–12 years on Indian lands being transported by drivers with valid driver licenses had the highest odds of being restrained. Our finding that the percentage of unrestrained passengers is the highest with drivers who tested positive for alcohol, followed by those tested positive for drugs and those tested positive for neither or who were not tested is consistent with previous studies [ 12 , 13 ].…”

“…Appropriate restraining of children in motor vehicles is effective in lowering child MV crash mortality [ 4 , 5 , 6 ], but American Indian pediatric passengers are reported to be less likely to be properly restrained [ 3 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], thus potentially increasing the risk of mortality. Several risk factors for increased risk of injury and mortality among American Indians have been identified [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], although there are also reports of racial misclassification for American Indians [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. In this study, we avoid some of the potential bias that could be introduced by racial misclassification of American Indians by examining whether the crash occurred on federally-designated Indian lands or nearby lands that were not designated as such.…”

Child passenger safety education in the emergency department: teen driving, car seats, booster seats, and more

“…reached statistical significance, we feel the increase overall to be a positive finding. It is important to educate families on the appropriate use of CPS as use of appropriate CPS restraints has been shown to reduce injury in infants involved in MVCs (Agran et al 1998;Mr et al 2006;Huang et al 2016). In 2011 the AAP began recommending that infants and children less than 2 years old be restrained in a rear facing seat in the vehicle's rear seat.…”

Factors Associated With Child Restraint Use in Motor Vehicle Crashes

“…5,10,24,35 Huang and colleagues found that among children <14 years old, being driven by an unrestrained driver increased the odds of the child being unrestrained. 22 The current study found that children who were transported by drivers who did not use lap-shoulder belts were less likely to be restrained in an age-appropriate CRS than children driven by belted drivers. As was suggested in an early study of CRS use, 35 it may be beneficial to incorporate driver restraint use into child passenger safety messages.…”

“…24,31 Furthermore, the inverse relationship between the proportion of CRS use andthe age of the child has been found in several cross-sectional studies, including those that specifically focus on unrestraint, CRS misuse, or age-appropriate restraint use. 8, 9, 11, 22, 31, 32 Older children are more frequently observed as unrestrained, 22,23 or restrained by an adult seat belt than younger children in the booster-aged cohort. 6, 10, 12 A similar pattern was detected in our descriptive analysis of restraint system type by the age of the child.…”