Transportation of Children: Ensuring Occupant Safety

Summary of Article's First 150 Words

Total word count: 1762

The two riskiest things we do with our children is open the door to the playground and open the door to our buses and vans. Experience proves that when serious injuries occur, they will happen in one of these two places. While the great debate over the safety of buses versus vans has now been settled (see Child Care Information Exchange, January, 2004), the issue regarding occupant safety is on fire in most states. Below we examine why and the current methods available to safely transport children of all ages.

Why all the concern
about how we
transport children?

• 20.5 million children aged 12 and under are in child care today
• 80% of these children are regularly transported
• motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional, injury-related death among children ages 14 and under, killing 1,700 and injuring 248,000 each year
• 46% of children in a recent study of ages 0-8 who should have been in a ...