1 Chairman of the Accident Prevention, Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Each year 1,000 children under the age of 5 are killed riding in automobiles and another 60,000 suffer disabling injuries.
Crash protection does not mean holding a child on the lap of the parent. If an automobile strikes a solid object or comes to a sudden stop the unrestrained passenger continues forward at the rate of speed of the car until stopped by a surface within the vehicle or ejected through the windshield. The geometric increase of the child's weight would not allow the parent's arms to restrain the child.