ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Passenger-side air bags are killing children, federal safety experts said Tuesday. They recommend children ride in the back seat and say that for those up front, air bags triggered at higher car speeds and with less power may help.
``Unfortunately, sometimes with the best intentions, you get unintended consequences,'' National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said of the 26 child deaths in recent years attributed to passenger-side air bags.
His agency issued a score of recommendations addressing the problems. The recommendations went to local, state and federal agencies, auto manufacturers and the makers of child restraint systems.
Among the recommendations:
* Governors and local officials should launch an education campaign emphasizing the importance of having children ride in the back seat. This could be paid for by setting aside one-tenth of 1 percent of auto insurance premiums paid in the state.
* Amend state laws, where needed, to require that all children under age 8 be in a car seat and those 8 and older use lap-and-shoulder belts. Eliminate loopholes for out-of-state residents and nonparents.
* National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should evaluate whether passenger-side air bag requirements should be changed to reduce inflation speed.
* Require a uniform attachment system for child restraint seats.
* Simplify the instructions for attaching child restraints.
* Manufacturers should offer built-in child restraints.
* Consider whether to increase the speed at which a car must be traveling when impact will trigger inflation of the air bag.
Air bags are designed to inflate at crash speeds up to 30 miles per hour, with most triggering at 8 to 11 mph.
``We need to have bags going off in accidents that are likely to produce a severe injury, and not going off in garden-variety, around-town crashes,'' said safety board staff member Vern Roberts.
The action concluded two years of analysis in which safety board staffers studied 120 accidents involving 207 children.
It found youngsters being injured and killed by passenger-side air bags and while riding in improperly attached child restraint systems.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB