 43 Percent Of Children Who Died From Car Crashes Were Improperly Restrained 
 
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 Twenty percent of children who were in a car crash where someone died were not buckled in properly or were not wearing a seat belt at all, a study finds, as were 43 percent of children who died themselves. The states with the highest child fatalities due to car accidents tended to be more rural. In all, they identified more than 18,000 children under 15 years old who were involved in fatal car crashes, 15.9 percent of whom died as a result of the crash. Being unrestrained or inappropriately restrained was the biggest factor in more kids dying," said the study's lead author Dr. Lindsey L. Wolf, a general surgery resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a research fellow at the Center for Surgery and Public Health there. Their study is published in The Journal of Pediatrics. A 10 percent improvement nationally in the use of appropriate child restraints in cars, they predict, would decrease the national child crash fatality rate significantly, cutting it from 0.94 per 100,000 to 0.56 per 100,000. The researchers also found that states with red light cameras, which are meant to enforce stoplights, had lower child fatality rates from car crashes.
– A new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics found ensuring children under 15 are properly restrained—or wearing seat belts at all—could save about 232 lives every year. Researchers found 20% of children who died in fatal car crashes between 2010 and 2014 weren't buckled in or were improperly restrained, NPR reports. Of the more than 18,000 children involved in fatal car crashes in those years, 15.9% died. The biggest factor in those deaths was whether the children were properly restrained. Other factors included rural roads, which increased the likelihood a child would die in a car crash, and red light cameras, which decreased that likelihood. The study found child fatality rates varied widely by state, which makes sense as seat belt laws, public information on car seats, rural roads, and the use of red light cameras also vary widely by state. More than half of all children who died in a car crash lived in the South. The highest rates of death were in Mississippi, Wyoming, Alabama, Montana, and Virginia, CBS News reports. The lowest were in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Rhode Island. In Mississippi, 38% of children who died in a fatal car crash weren't restrained properly or at all. The study's authors advocate for stronger seat belt laws and better public information—potentially at the federal level—to protect children in car crashes.