Abstract
In 2003, about 100 children younger than 12 years of age have been killed in a road accident as car passengers in France. Even if this figure is decreasing since 1992, date from which the use of a child restraint system (CRS) became mandatory, France remains the European country with the highest number of children killed in a car. Recent studies conducted in France enlightened that more than 2/3 of children were not correctly restrained while traveling in cars, which reduces considerably their level of protection.
The aim of this study is to conduct an exhaustive analysis of road accidents where children have been killed as car passengers. Police reports on fatal accidents occurred between September 2001 and October 2003 in France have been collected. Experts in accidentology have analyzed and coded them. Data concerning the general characteristics of the accidents, the vehicles (type of impact, severity), the car occupants (age, use of restraint systems) were gathered in a data base. Its analysis allows identifying the characteristics of these fatal accidents in terms of type of impact, rate of use and quality of use of a specific restraint system, ejection.
Data on 206 fatally injured children aged less then 12 years old are at hand. Among them, 57% used a restraint system, and 31% were not restrained. The information was unknown for the remaining 12%.
The analysis of the characteristics of the crash according to the type of impact shows that: - 34% of the children were killed in frontal impact although 2/3 of them used a specific restraint. - 28% of the fatalities occurred in lateral impact, with a restraint rate similar to the one observed in frontal impact.
- 18% of the children were killed in a roll over. The number of children ejected is high and as the majority of these children were not restrained (rate of restraint use is lower than 25%), one can say that most of these fatalities might have been avoided with the use of a restraint system.
Other figures concerning the quality of use, the violence of impact, the driver characteristics (gender, and responsibility in the crash) are given and countermeasures in active and passive safety are proposed.
Keywords: child safety, road accident, child restraint systems, frontal impact, side impact