Seatbelt Safety¹

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in children ages 5-14.

• Every day, an average of 5 children under the age of 15 are killed and 751 are injured in motor vehicle crashes.

• Lap/shoulder safety belts reduce the risk of fatal injury in children 5 years and older in passenger cars by 45%, in light trucks by 60%.

• Child safety seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71% for infants and 54% for children 1-4 years old.

Pedestrian Injuries²

• Pedestrian injury is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 5-14

• Approximately 80% of all pedestrian injuries are traffic-related.

• More than 25% of all children ages 5-9 killed in traffic crashes are pedestrians

• Nearly 70% of non-traffic-related childhood pedestrian deaths occur among children ages 4 and under, including those occurring in driveways, in parking lots and on sidewalks.

Bike Safety

Bicycle related head injuries account for about³:

• 500 deaths per year

• 17,000 hospitalizations

• 153,000 emergency department visits

• Two-thirds of bicycle related deaths

• One-third of non-fatal bicycle injuries

• Bicycle helmets have been shown to reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 85% and the risk of brain injury by as much as 88%.²

Railroad Crossing and Trespassing Safety⁴

• Nearly every 90 minutes, someone in America is hit by a train.

• Over the past five years, 20,000 individuals have been casualties at highway-rail crossings or while trespassing.

• Children 15 and under account for 8% of railroad crossing and trespass casualties.

• Highway-rail crossings casualties (75%) outnumbered trespassing casualties (25%)

Burn Injury Safety²

• In 1997, 83,000 children ages 14 and under were treated in hospital emergency rooms for burn related injuries

• Thermal burns accounted for 70% of these injuries, scalds 30%

• Among children ages 4 and under hospitalized for burn related injuries, 65% are scalds.

• An average of 16 children ages 14 and under die from scald burn related injuries each year. Children ages 4 and under account for nearly all of these deaths.

Poisoning

• Lead poisoning affects an estimated 4.4% or 890,000 U.S. preschoolers⁵

• Each year, 45 children ages 4 and under die from unintentional exposure to medicines and household products.²

• 57% of poisoning exposures are from non-pharmaceutical products such as cosmetics, cleaning substances, plants, foreign bodies and toys, pesticides, art supplies and alcohol.

Falls²

• Each year, approximately 18 children ages 10 and under die from window-fall related injuries.

• An estimated 4,500 children ages 14 and under are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries sustained from falling out of windows.

• Each year, nearly 20 children ages 14 and under die and an estimated 211,000 are treated in hospital emergency rooms from playground equipment-related fall injuries.

• Children ages 4-14 account for 70% of these injuries.

Unintentional Firearm Injuries²

• Unintentional shootings account for nearly 20 percent of all firearm-related fatalities among children ages 14 and under, compared with 3 percent for the entire U.S. population.

• Each year, an estimated 1,500 children ages 14 and under are treated in hospital emergency rooms form unintentional firearm-related injuries.

• In 1996, nearly 140 children in this age group died from their injuries.

• The unintentional firearm injury death rate in the United States is nine times higher than in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration www.nhtsa.dot.gov

National Safe Kids Campaign www.safekids.org

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention www.cdc.gov/ncipc/bike/problem.htm

U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration www.fra.dot.gov