ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 17, 1997 TAG: 9702170095
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
NEW GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS intended to "goof-proof" child safety seats are aimed at reducing the alarming number of improperly installed seats.
Parents: Never quite sure the doohickey behind your child's car seat is hooked to the belt thingy the right way?
Let Uncle Sam take over.
New government standards ordered Saturday by President Clinton promise to make child safety seats goof-proof and ensure that any of 100 models of safety seats will fit easily into any of the 900 different car models.
``We're moving closer to the day when safe, well-attached car seats will be the rule of the road,'' Clinton said in his weekly radio address.
Under new Transportation Department regulations, every child safety seat would be equipped by 1999 with two standard buckles at its base. Every new car would have standard latches in the back seat specially designed to fasten to the buckles.
``Kids will be safer, and parents will be certain they're doing everything right,'' said Joe Colella, executive director of The Dana Foundation.
Colella has lobbied for a universal model since his 3-year-old niece, Dana, was killed in a 1993 crash. She was in a car seat that should have saved her life, but was improperly installed, he said.
Colella offered a tip to parents waiting out the new equipment: If a car seat can be pulled forward or side-to-side by more than an inch, it's not strapped in right.
In advance of the president's announcement, bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress last week to spend $15 million on a two-year public relations campaign to teach parents how to use car seats and properly strap in their children. Maryland Reps. Connie Morella, a Republican, and Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, sponsored the bill, which would put an educational program in place for 1999 and 2000.
A universal attachment system for kids' car seats was recommended in 1995 by a panel of experts commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The transportation agency estimates that eight of every 10 child car seats are used improperly, contributing to the deaths of some 350 preschool children in 1995 traffic accidents. Properly used restraints are thought to reduce the risk of death or serious injury for toddlers by more than half.
Phil Haseltine of the American Coalition of Traffic Safety estimated that standardizing child seats would increase their cost by between $11 and $20. Most child seats now cost $40 to $125, he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB