About the Author:  Kevin Burke is a member of the FortiusOne analysis team. Read more from this author

Safety Seats are used throughout the country to help protect children from injury during an automobile wreck. Currently motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children ages 14 and under. It is easy to see that a large emphasis needs to be made in order to help protect children when they are in a car crash. From state to state different laws and regulations have been established referring to size, weight, and age of the child riding. All states have different requirements on who must be in a child safety seat when riding in a car.

Most states use age as their determining factor. Below is a map in Maker! from a dataset in Finder! that shows the maximum age that a child must be in a child safety seat in their state. (Click on the map for a larger image)

The map shows that some states go as high as eight years old (Wyoming and Tennessee) and some states go as low as three years old (Alaska, Florida, Minnesota). The low ages in some states seem surprising and it seems that some states need to do more to improve their laws and regulations regarding child safety seats. Let’s look at the map below.

The map compares statistics on the number of children ages 4 to 7 killed in automobile accidents from 2005 to 2007 to the maximum age map that we first viewed above.

From the map I see three states that are in need of a change to their child safety seat laws. Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Let’s look at the states in the table below compared with three states that seem to be doing a better job with their laws and regulations:

Florida, Texas, and Arizona each rank in the top ten for number of child auto accident fatalities from 2005 to 2007 (Texas and Florida in the top 3). With this in mind it seems that maybe more should be done to increase the number of children in car safety seats.

Something else that I found peculiar was in first time maximum fines. States that set their maximum ages from 3 to 5 have an average fine of $90. States with maximum ages between 6 and 8 had an average fine of $52. Does this mean that states that set younger ages simply make their penalties higher? This seems like a disturbing trend. I’m not sure that extra fines will do the job of saving lives.

Another disturbing trend is that in many auto accidents children were not secured properly in their car safety seat. To help prevent this, many Car Safety Seat Inspection Centers have been established. These centers teach parents with young children how to properly secure their children and if their safety seat is the right type to use. Below is a map that shows all the locations across the country. If you have a small one riding in your car, check one out today!

Links to datasets in Finder!
Child Restraint Laws by State, USA, 3.2009
Total Child Traffic Fatalities by State and by Age Range, USA, 2005/2006/2007/2005-2007
Child Safety Seat Inspection Centers, USA, 3.2009

Links to maps in Maker!
Maximum Age that a Child must be in a Car
Safety Seat
Number of Child Ages 4 to 7 killed in Auto Accidents vs Maximum Age a Child must be in a Car Seat 2005 to 2007
Child Safety Seat Inspection Seat Centers, USA

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