Car Seat Safety

Red, White & Blue is a certified fit station and is happy to assist with car seat information and installation.  Please contact us at 970.453.2474 for more information.

Child Passenger Safety Statistics and Fact Sheet

Motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the U.S. and many of these deaths can be prevented. Placing children in age- and size-appropriate car seats and booster seats reduces serious and fatal injuries by more than one-half.

How big is the problem?

• In the United States during 2005, approximately 1,300 children ages 14 years and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and approximately 184,000 were injured. That’s an average of four deaths and 504 injuries each day.
• In 2006, an estimated 425 lives of children under the age of five were saved by car and booster seat use.

What are the risk factors?

• One out of four occupant deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years involved a drinking driver. More than two-thirds of these fatally injured children were riding with a drinking driver.
• Restraint use among young children often depends upon the driver’s seat belt use. Almost 40% of children riding with unbelted drivers were themselves unrestrained.
• Child restraint systems are often used incorrectly. One study found that 72% of nearly 3,500 observed car and booster seats were misused in a way that could be expected to increase a child’s risk of injury during a crash.

How can injuries to children in motor vehicles be prevented?

• Child safety seats reduce the risk of death in passenger cars by 71% for infants and by 54% for toddlers ages one to four years.
• There is strong evidence that child safety seat laws, safety seat distribution and education programs, community-wide education and enforcement campaigns, and incentive-plus-education programs are effective in increasing child safety seat use.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends booster seats for children until they are at least 8 years of age or 4’9” tall.
• According to researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for children four to seven years old, booster seats reduce injury risk by 59% compared to seat belts alone.
• All children ages 12 years and younger should ride in the back seat. Adults should avoid placing children in front of airbags. Putting children in the back seat eliminates the injury risk of deployed front passenger-side airbags and places children in the safest part of the vehicle in the event of a crash.
• Overall, for children less than 16 years, riding in the back seat is associated with a 40% reduction in the risk of serious injury.
• To learn more about effective interventions to increase child safety seat use, visit CDC’s Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety page.

Colorado Passenger Safety (CPS) Law

This law states that it’s the driver’s responsibility to ensure that child passengers are properly buckled up in the appropriate restraint on every trip. The child restraint must have a label that states it meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 213 set forth in Section 49 C.F.R. 571.213, as amended.

To view the complete law excluding the latest update please click here. (Title 42: Vehicles and Traffic: 42-4-236 Child restraint systems required - definitions - exemptions.) For the latest update, click here. (House Bill 1381) (PDF)

Requirements of the Law

Rear Facing Child Restraint Systems
The law requires infants to ride in a rear-facing child safety seat until they are at least one year old and weight at least 20 lbs.

Forward Facing Child Restraint Systems
The law requires that children ages one year to four years who weigh 20 pounds up to 40 pounds be restrained in a forward-facing child safety seat.

*Booster Seats
The law requires that children who weigh over 40 lbs. or who are at least four years old but less than six years old be properly restrained in a child booster seat or with a child safety belt-positioning device, unless they are 55 inches tall.

Safety Belts
The law requires that a child who is at least six years old or is at least 55 inches tall, must be properly restrained with the motor vehicle’s safety belt.

It is recommended that proper seat belt fit is achieved when the child meets the 5-Step Test (from Safety Belt Safe U.S.A., www.carseat.org):

1) The child can sit all the way back against the auto seat.
2) The child’s knees bend comfortably at the edge of the auto seat.
3) The belt crosses the shoulder between the neck and arm.
4) The lap belt is as low as possible touching the thighs.
5) The child can stay seated like this for the whole trip.

Other Provisions of Colorado’s Child Restraint Law

The law applies to children being transported in a privately owned non-commercial vehicle and in non-commercial vehicles operated by childcare centers.

Children must be buckled up in the front and back seats on every trip.

Exemptions
Children are exempt from the law when:

A child is being transported in a medical emergency.

Children are being transported in a motor vehicle built to commercial standards such as a school bus.

If a child is at least four years of age and is less than 55 inches tall and if the child is being transported in a vehicle equipped with ONLY a two-point-lap-belt system available for the child, the child shall be properly restrained with a lap belt.

NOTE: To ensure children are properly restrained as required in the law, follow the recommendations below:

To determine proper installation, refer to both the owner’s manual of the child restraint system and the owner’s manual of the vehicle.

All child restraint systems must be installed according to manufacturer’s instructions.