Is this statistic right?

[AngelaS]

Yesterday in the drs. office I was reading the Feb 2003 issue of Parenting. There was a little blurb that said only 6% of kids that should be in booster seats actually are and that car accidents are the leading cause of death for kids over age 4. Is that true?? 6%??? Wow.....

[CPSDarren]

I don't know about the booster statistic, but boosters are BY FAR the largest area of non-use for all child restraints.

Motor vehicle crashes are indeed the #1 cause of death for ages 1-34! That's according to the center for disease control. About half those deaths are from non-use of restraint systems. Many of the rest are from misuse:-(

Some more links to statistics pages can be found on our new links page: http://www.car-safety.org/links2.html

[Robert]

The leading cause of death for 5-14 year olds is traffic crashes.

In fatal crashes of 4-8 year olds it is reported that 21% were unrestraint.

In 1999 only 63% of teh 4-8 year old age group were using booster

For information see

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/childps/booster_seat/National_Strategy_2002.pdf[URL]