PEDIATRICS Vol. 64 No. 6 December 1979, pp. 966-968
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Vehicle Occupant Safety: The Pediatrician's Responsibility

Mark D. Widome MD, MPH1

1 The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania

The preeminent position of the automobile as a childhood health hazard has been recently emphasized in both the medical and lay literature.1-2 Contrary to the common impression, of the approximately 5,000 Americans below the age of 15 who die in traffic accidents each year, a majority are vehicle occupants.3 Baker, in this issue of Pediatrics (p 860) reemphasizes the magnitude of this public health problem and provides us with important additional information regarding the epidemiology of this "disease." Her vital statistics analysis demonstrates that it is during the earliest months of infancy, those months when, presumably, children are most carefully supervised by their parents and most dependent on them for their survival, that they are most likely to die in the automobile.