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/ Back to home / Keeping your child well / Safety and accident prevention / Car safety for school-aged children
Car safety for school-aged childrenDisclaimer: This fact sheet is for educational use only. Please consult your doctor or other health professional to make sure this information is right for your child. Key points to rememberKey Message: Put your school kids in the back in a booster
 Back to TopCould we do more to keep our kids safe in cars?There is not a parent amongst us who would not do the utmost to keep our children safe.
New Zealand has some of the worst statistics in the world with respect to child safety and road traffic safety, with at least 20 children dying and more than ten times that number seriously injured each year as a passenger in a car. It will therefore come as a surprise to many to learn that most of us could do a lot more for our school-aged children to reduce their risk of death and serious injury when they travel as a passenger in the family car.
Back to TopWhat are the problems with adult seat belts for kids?If you take the time to look at your child sitting in their seat in your car with an adult seat belt across them, it soon becomes obvious that they don’t fit. While it may be true that come five years of age our kids have “grown out” of their car seat age, it is not true that they are now okay without anything except the adult seat belt - a restraint that is designed for adult dimensions. Until they reach puberty, children have some shape issues:
1. The length of the top part of their leg is too short to sit with their knees comfortably bent over the edge of the seat and their bottom against the back of the seat – so they slouch back allowing the lap part of the belt to ride up over their tummy.
2. Their sitting height doesn’t allow them to reach the shoulder anchor so that the sash part of the belt crosses the neck instead of the shoulder and breast bone. Sometimes the kids will hook their arm over the belt as this is uncomfortable. Both situations are dangerous.
3. Until puberty the child’s pelvic bones are underdeveloped and not big enough to be the anchor for the lap part of the belt which is how it is designed to work in us adults.
4. This mismatch is much worse if they fall asleep which, of course, they do.
Back to TopWhat should we be doing and why?There is a large and consistent body of evidence confirming that children have up to three-and-a-half times reduction in serious injuries and deaths in car crashes if they use a booster seat rather than just an adult seat belt. Boosters protect from serious head injury, broken necks and lower spines and particularly abdominal injury such as ruptured liver or spleen. This is because they channel the lap part of the belt over the top part of the legs / lower pelvis and not over the abdomen. They also raise the child up so that the top part of the belt is over the bony strength of the breast bone and shoulder, not the neck. In this way the forces in a crash are taken first by the stronger bony parts of the child’s body.
Back to TopWhen is it safe to use an adult seat belt?Children are safe in an adult seat belt when they reach a height of 148 cm tall.
A recent study at Starship confirms overseas findings that children up to as old as 11 or 12 years of age are not ready for adult seat belts alone and should be using booster seats. The study found that all four and five year olds, 90 percent of all six, seven and eight year olds, 50 percent of nine and ten year olds and ten percent of 11 and 12 year olds still needed to be in booster seats.
The reason most laws and recommendations talk about ages and heights is because most parents know their children’s age and weight and not their height, and it makes law enforcement easier. Kids in New Zealand reach this height on average around ten to 11 years of age. On average this equates to around 36kg body weight but this obviously varies with a child's build.
Back to TopHow do I sell this message to my kids?Our experience is that children are logical beings and a straight explanation that makes sense is usually sufficient. Other than significantly reducing injury and death in a crash, being higher up in the car has other benefits. They can see more and may be less likely to throw up. In a booster seat, if they fall asleep they don’t fall out of their restraint and are safer and more comfortable. They also want to do what their peers are doing, so if everyone had to be in a booster, until they reached 148cm tall, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Back to TopNew Zealand parents need to know the facts regardless of the lawThere are people working on changing the law in New Zealand. However, this could take a while and in the meantime there is no reason why the parents of New Zealand should be kept from the facts regardless of the law. The British changed their law last September to require children to be in the correct child restraints until they reach 12 years of age or 135cm in height.
The RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) in the UK has a very good summary and recommendations for best practice on their parents’ website1.
Back to TopWhere to go for more informationOn this website
Back to TopAcknowledgementsStarship Foundation and the Paediatric Society of New Zealand acknowledge the co-operation of the Starship Intensive Care Unit in making this fact sheet available to parents and families.
Back to TopLinks (these are the web addresses for the numbered links in the text above) Back to TopYour notesEndorsement
This fact sheet was endorsed by PSNZ - 14/06/2007
CopyrightFact sheets are subject to copyright. In the interests of information sharing they may be copied but acknowledgement must be given to PSNZ and Starship Foundation. © The Paediatric Society of New Zealand and Starship Foundation 2005 - 2010
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