One-Third of Kids Killed in Car Crashes Were Unbuckled

carseat, car safety, children safety — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

One-third of children who die in car crashes are not buckled up, according to a new government report.

Although crash-related deaths among children age 12 and younger have decreased by 43 percent over the past decade, more than 9,000 children still died in crashes between 2002 and 2011, many of whom were not buckled up, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The researchers found that almost half of all black (45 percent) and Hispanic (46 percent) children who died in crashes were not buckled up, compared with 26 percent of white children. These differences might be attributable to variations in economic status, the researchers said, as previous studies have shown that difficulty paying for car seats plays a role in whether parents buckle up their children.

Bahar Gholipour is a staff reporter for Live Science covering neuroscience, odd medical cases and all things health. She holds a Master of Science degree in neuroscience from the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, and has done graduate-level work in science journalism at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has worked as a research assistant at the Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives at ENS.