Remarks as Prepared For Secretary Slater, NTSB Child Passenger Safety Press Conference

Rodney E. Slater, United States Secretary of Transportation
December 7, 2000

I would like to congratulate Chairman Jim Hall and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for your outstanding record on child passenger safety and for your successful partnership with us at the United States Department of Transportation. Thank you also for bringing together so many people today to discuss child safety seats and the "lap belts-only problem."

I would also like to thank Mark Edwards and the AAA organization for their hard work in improving child safety, especially for being the certifying body of NHTSA=s Standardized Child Passenger Safety Training Program. In just two years this program has produced more than 13,000 certified child passenger safety technicians throughout the country.

Under President Clinton and Vice President Gore=s leadership, America=s record in child passenger safety has never been better. Traffic accidents took the lives of 16 percent fewer children under age 5 in 1999 compared with three years earlier. The use of child safety seats is at an all-time high, with 97 percent of infants restrained in car seats, an increase from 85 percent in 1996. For toddlers, the increase is even more impressive, with 91 percent traveling in car seats in 1998 compared to 60 percent two years earlier. While that's progress, we can and we must do more.

This is why the United States Department of Transportation has developed "The Child Restraints Systems Safety Plan" to encourage the correct use of safety seats and to provide useful consumer information. This plan addresses a wide variety of child passenger safety issues, including booster seats, fitting stations, the new universal attachment system for child safety seats (known as LATCH), and improvements of child dummies used in testing, to guide us in improving child passenger protection.

Today, as part of that plan, we are highlighting our efforts to increase the use of booster seats for children ages 4 to 8. Currently, less than 10 percent of children this age are restrained in booster seats.

To help parents and caregivers use car safety seats, the United States Department of Transportation has initiated a new Internet service. By going to www.nhtsa.dot.gov, parents and caregivers will be able to locate a child seat inspection center in their area by clicking on the "Child Safety Seat Inspections" icon. The same information is available through our toll-free Hotline number, "1-888-DASH-2-DOT."

AAA-certified technicians, who completed NHTSA's child passenger safety program, will be at these inspection centers, checking car seats to make sure they are installed and used correctly. Inspection centers will also help parents choose the correct safety seat for their child and identify which car seats are compatible with various types of motor vehicles. Inspection centers can be found at fire stations, hospitals, law enforcement agencies and similar places across the nation.

Several service centers are operated by Daimler Chrysler's "Fit for a Kid" program, the GM/SAFE KIDS program and the Ford Motor Corporation, and these corporations= participation underscores the important safety benefits we can achieve by working together in partnership with stakeholders and constituents.

These service centers and our new on-line resource builds on the United States Department of Transportation=s previous accomplishments, which include innovative programs to increase booster seat and seat belt usage, as well as our "Blue Ribbon Panel II" on protecting older child passengers.

Indeed, "Safety is a promise we must make and keep together," -- which is something we always say at the United States Department of Transportation. And we look forward to building on our safety record with this new Internet service.

Source:  U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)