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CHILD RESTRAINT INFORMATION

The Florida Police Chiefs Association and the Air Bag Safety Campaign are pleased to provide you with the following safe driving information which will have a lifesaving impact on you and your children.

Traffic crashes are the #1 killer of young children. Six out of ten children who die in traffic crashes are completely unrestrained. However, studies have shown that proper safety seat usage can reduce fatalities by 40-50%.

According to the Florida Department of Transportation's statistics for the year 2000, 76% of children less than 4 years of age avoided injuries by being properly restrained and 73% of children 4-5 years of age avoided injury by being properly restrained.

Child restraint use in 2000 for children 5 years and younger was 64.2%, an increase from the 1999 rate of 61.3%.

Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death and injury to children ages 0-15. There are one-third fewer fatalities to children who ride properly restrained in the back seat.

Child safety seats, properly installed, reduce the risk of death by 69% for infants and 47% for toddlers.

It's Up to Adults to Make Sure Children Buckle Up

Studies consistently show that the best way to get children buckled up is to get adults buckled up. A recent crash study by the University of California, Irvine, reported in the journal Pediatrics, found "Driver restraint use was the strongest predictor of child restraint use." "A restrained driver was three times more likely to restrain a child." And according to NHTSA observational data, when a driver is buckled up, children are buckled up 87% of the time; however, when a driver is unbuckled, child belt use drops to only 24%.

As children age, they are less likely to be observed in a safety restraint. Most of the time when a parent or adult in the car is not buckled up, children in the car are not buckled up either.

In addition, a survey of parents who have infants shows that the lack of adult belt use particularly endangers babies. Parents who don't buckle up are more likely to improperly place babies the front seat, leaving them at serious risk of being injured or killed by an air bag.

Safety belts and child safety seats help prevent injury in five different ways:

Prevent ejection

Shift crash forces to the strongest parts of the body's structure

Spread forces over a wider area of the body

Allow the body to slow down gradually

Protect the head and spinal cord
FLORIDA LAW

316.613 Child Restraint Requirements

1)(a) Every operator of a motor vehicle as defined herein, while transporting a child in a motor vehicle operated on the roadways, streets, or highways of this state, shall, if the child is 5 years of age or younger, provide for protection of the child by properly using a crash-tested, federally approved child restraint device. For children aged through 3 years, such restraint device must be a separate carrier or a vehicle manufacturer's integrated child seat. For children aged 4 through 5 years, a separate carrier, an integrated child seat, or a seat belt may be used.

(b) The Division of Motor Vehicles shall provide notice of the requirement for child restraint devices, which notice shall accompany the delivery of each motor vehicle license tag.

(2) As used in this section, the term "motor vehicle" means a motor vehicle as defined in s. 316.003 that is operated on the roadways, streets, and highways of the state. The term does not include:

(a) A school bus as defined in s. 316.003(45).

(b) A bus used for the transportation of persons for compensation, other than a bus regularly used to transport children to or from school, as defined in s. 316.615(1)(b), or in conjunction with school activities.

(c) A farm tractor or implement of husbandry.

(d) A truck having a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 26,000 pounds.

(e) A motorcycle, moped, or bicycle.

(3) The failure to provide and use a child passenger restraint shall not be considered comparative negligence, nor shall such failure be admissible as evidence in the trial of any civil action with regard to negligence.

(4) It is the legislative intent that all state, county, and local law enforcement agencies, and safety councils, in recognition of the problems with child death and injury from unrestrained occupancy in motor vehicles, conduct a continuing safety and public awareness campaign as to the magnitude of the problem.

(5) Any person who violates the provisions of this section commits a moving violation, punishable as provided in chapter 318 and shall have 3 points assessed against his or her driver's license as set forth in s. 322.27. In lieu of the penalty specified in s. 318.18 and the assessment of points, a person who violates the provisions of this section may elect, with the court's approval, to participate in a child restraint safety program approved by the chief judge of the circuit in which the violation occurs, and upon completing such program, the penalty specified in chapter 318 and associated costs may be waived at the court's discretion and the assessment of points shall be waived. The child restraint safety program must use a course approved by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the fee for the course must bear a reasonable relationship to the cost of providing the course.

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