Booster seats save lives, and so do state laws requiring young children to ride in them, according to a new study.
Booster seats are aimed at kids who are too big for traditional car seats but too small to be properly restrained by seat belts alone. The seats boost these kids up so that a car’s shoulder belt secures them in a safe way. But their use is far from widespread: Only 48% of 4- and 5-year-olds use them, along with 35% of 6- and 7-year-olds, according to a 2008 survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA.
Considering that car crashes are the No. 3 cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 18, booster seats have the potential to save many lives. So researchers from Children’s Hospital Boston and the Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention in Boston examined NHTSA data on all car crashes in the U.S. between 1999 and 2009 in which someone died.
During that decade, 47 states and the District of Columbia passed laws on booster seat use (though the provisions of those laws varied quite a bit). In the years before those laws were passed, the fatality rate from car crashes among 4- and 5-year-olds was 5.7 deaths per 100,000 kids. In the years after the laws went into effect, the death rate dropped to 4.2 deaths per 100,000 kids.