Friday, December 06, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

CHILDREN IN VEHICLES: Safety seats going unused in Nevada

State officials hope parents start getting message

Van Barrell, left, and his dad, Mark, holding 1-month-old Cole, wait for a expert to install a child safety seat at Findlay Volkswagen at the Valley Auto Mall in Henderson. Safety advocates hope to revamp Nevada's safety seat law to, among other things, require that parents make sure their child's safety seat is properly installed. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Young children moving about in moving vehicles are such a common sight local traffic officers have affectionately dubbed them window lickers.

And despite efforts by police and safety advocates to reduce the number of window lickers traveling valley roads, through child safety seat check points, court-mandated education programs and free installation clinics, Clark County and the state have yet to see a dramatic increase in child safety seat use.

A not-yet-published University of Nevada, Las Vegas study shows only 41 percent of the county's children under the age of 5 travel in a safety seat as required by law, a slight decrease from 43 percent in 2001 and 45 percent 2000. The national average for child safety seat use is 65 percent.

"It's sad that after all of this effort, we're obviously missing lots of folks," said Erin Breen, director of UNLV Safe Community Partnership. "We have to come up with a way to get people's attention."

Safety advocates believe a revamped safety seat law is the attention-getter they need to reverse the trend.

The current state law requires children younger than 5 years old and weighing less than 40 pounds ride in a safety seat. Fines for violating the law are $35.

State Sen.-elect Dennis Nolan, a former paramedic and coroner investigator, is backing a bill that would raise the age limit and eliminate the weight requirement, making it easier for police to enforce. In addition, the bill would set fines at $100 and require seats to be installed according to the manufacturer's guidelines.

"We want to put a law out there that will be taken seriously because we're still seeing children die needlessly because of carelessness," said Nolan, R-Las Vegas.

The higher age limit would address the "forgotten children" between 5 and 8 years old, safety advocates said.

These children aren't required to ride in a safety seat under the current law, but studies show they're not adequately protected by adult seat belts either. Experts recommend older children use a booster seats until they're 4 feet 9 inches tall.

"We're trying to bridge the gap between science and policy," said Traci Filippi, highway safety representative for the Department of Motor Vehicle's Office of Traffic Safety. "We've never focused on these kids in between (5 and 8), and a very high percentage of them are killed because they're unrestrained and the law doesn't address it."

The new law also would address another common danger: improperly installed child safety seats.

At a child seat inspection check point in Las Vegas last week, police officers and safety advocates inspected 76 vehicles with child seats. None was correctly installed.

Jeanie Cosgrove, director of Clark County Safe Kids, which offers free child seat installation clinics throughout the valley, attributes the problem to changes in vehicle seats and safety belt designs.

"As vehicles have become more comfortable for adults, it's made car seats more of a problem," she said. "Seat belts are designed so you can move freely and must be switched to a locked position (to secure a child safety seat). We have contoured seats, which make more comfortable but the angle is incorrect for newborns, who need be reclined at 45 degrees so they can breathe."

The sheer number of safety seats and vehicle models contributes to the confusion, Filippi said.

"The problem is not parents and caregivers don't care, it's the incompatibility of hundreds of seats and hundreds of vehicles and trying to match those instructions with the vehicle," she said.

Police officers would be trained to correctly install child safety seats, Nolan said. And the law wouldn't target parents who make an honest effort to properly install safety seats.

"We're trying to get a law that addresses people who show a reckless disregard for children's lives, while taking into account most parents are trying to do what they should be doing," Nolan said.

Safety advocates said the bill would close a loophole, which allows parents to present a receipt for a child seat within 14 days of a violation to have their citation waived.

Some have purchased seats, shown the judge the receipt and then returned them for a refund, Filippi said.

In a recent case, a Carson City woman was ticketed three times, presented a receipt to get the ticket waived, but never installed the seats. She received her fourth citation following a crash that claimed the life of one of her children.

"Because our current law is weak and has loopholes, I don't think it's taken seriously," Filippi said. "Therefore, usage rates are low."

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