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Show I 4:A x 3 J : x" X ' - - ' ' " : x ' f I - ' -" 's k . : I - n s xx " - y , - , , . . " t : "' y . "." , - " . ' x"? ' ' " llilllillii ' .;iit;.i . x, - r , ; , ' ' 0 V ' ' -''-. . . :&.;, . s 4 s , ' - v . , ,., yyyy: I - i: $ , . , y - . ; 4 ... . P.- ' t... . ',',''." '.;....!.::":. . I."' :. i w& " yyyy&&&liaa,,J aws.w wm4.w( . s , mi4m ; :v;::.;:.. Buckle Up Janalee Young, from Escalante, buckles up her children, Raymond and Tashonda. The Utah Highway Patrol is joining Child Passenger Safety Week Places Focus On Gift of Love to Youngsters National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week is the week of Feb. 7-13. This nationwide effort coincides with Valentine's Day a time when many people express their love and appreciation to friends and family members. The 1988 Awareness Week offers of-fers a timely opportunity to alert parents to the critical need to "Be a Valentine for Life: Buckle-Up Your Family." Utah Highway Patrol Lieutenant Dan Chidester said the number one cause of death and disabling injury among America's children is the trauma they suffer as passengers in traffic accidents. Yet, only about 50 percent of all children is correctly restrained in cars. The correct use of safety seats can virtually eliminate these deaths and injuries, he said. A concerted effort across the nation aims to boost correct child safety scat use to 70 percent by 1990. The "70 by 90" goal can be reached if every community enforces its child passenger pas-senger protection laws and conducts comprehensive public information and educauon programs year-round. Cooperative efforts among groups concerned about the problem, prob-lem, the health and medical field, the business community, and government gov-ernment at all levels, will make child passenger safety the priority issue it deserves to be in every community, Chidester said. Chidester emphasizes the need for correct usage of safety seats. Based on a study by the National Passenger Safety Association (NPSA), overall misuse for all occupied oc-cupied safety seats was 65 percent. However, the correct use rate has been increasing due to improved design of the seats, better instructions instruc-tions by the manufacturers and edu- a nationwide effort this week to make people realize how important child restraint seats are. cation to combat misuse. The most common misuse errors are related to improper routing of the car's safety belt to anchor the seat, infant seats facing the wrong direction, seat harnesses or shields not fastened correctly or unused tether straps (which are on some older models). The issue has come a long way, Chidester said. All 50 states now' have child passenger safety laws, as compared to 1979 when only Ten- nessee had such a law. Even current usage shows dramatic dra-matic results: Among children under four S1! Sea Panted aboui 8,000 injuries in 1987. With 100 percent correct use, child seats could prevent about 53,000 injuries. rh.77Among children under four ,K-"We v made maJr slides in this area," Chidester said, "but it isn t enough, and won't be enoueh until a 1 children are properly sl-cured sl-cured in child safety seats everv time they ride in an automobile " |
