Keeping Kids Safe
The auto industry, spurred on by child-safety experts (those kids are smart) and consumer advocates, has made great strides in adding useful safety equipment to our arsenal of protective devices. The three-point seatbelt, child-safety seat, booster seat and airbags have all made automobiles a safer place for us and our children. All of this becomes largely pointless, though, if we don't require that our children use the safety devices provided for them and if we fail to install and use these devices properly.

Around Madison: Check for child safety
The Madison County Pilots Club will sponsor a Child Safety Seat Check Day on Sept. 19 in the parking lot of Ingles supermarket in Hull.

Child Safety and Cars
If you follow your state laws regarding child safety seats, your children must be safe in your car, right? Oh, how wrong you are. Many safety experts agree that no set of state laws currently provides for the comprehensive efforts necessary to protect children as well as they might be protected. Further, many state laws leave some children woefully unprotected even though proper measures are clear. But if you answered "yes" to our original question, you are among the majority of parents in the United States.

Child Safety and the SUV
A study that hit the news recently delivered a counterintuitive message. When the general news media reported on the study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, it gave the impression that sport utility vehicles were no safer for child-passengers than cars. But according to analysis of a much broader study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), children are at least twice as safe in SUVs than in passenger cars when properly restrained. Of course, NHTSA is the federal government agency responsible for automobile and highway safety.