• Posted August 8, 2025

Most Kids In Fatal Car Wrecks Aren't Safely Restrained

Most children involved in fatal car crashes are not safely and properly restrained, needlessly placing them in harm’s way, a new study says.

About 7 of 10 kids younger than 13 weren’t safely strapped in when a fatal auto accident took place, researchers reported in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.

“We found more than half of children younger than 13 years old involved in crashes with fatalities to have suboptimal child passenger safety practices,” reported the research team led by senior researcher Dr. Michelle Macy, director of the Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation Center at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

Most often, children had been prematurely transitioned to a booster seat or seat belt rather than left in a car seat in the rear, researchers said.

Others either were riding completely unrestrained or riding in the front seat, the study says.

An average of three children die in a motor vehicle wreck every day in the United States, and 429 are injured, researchers said in background notes.

To figure out whether a lack of safe restraint contributes to these deaths and injuries, researchers analyzed data on more than 52,300 children involved in fatal car crashes between 2011 and 2021 as reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Nearly 70% of children in a fatal crash were not properly secured, results show.

More than a third (36%) had been moved to a booster seat or seat belt before they were ready to leave a car seat, researchers found.

Children should ride in a rear-facing car seat in the back until age 4, and in a forward-facing car seat until at least age 5, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Kids should only transition to a booster seat after outgrowing their car seat, and should remain in a booster seat until they’ve gotten big enough for a seat belt to fit properly, the CDC says.

Another 20% of kids in fatal accidents were riding unrestrained, and 15% were riding in the front seat, results show.

Children should be kept properly buckled in the back seat until age 13, the CDC says.

In all, about 9% of the children riding in the front seat weren’t restrained at all, researchers found.

The research team also found that stricter laws and tougher fines for car restraint offenses were significantly associated with lower odds of kids riding while improperly restrained.

“State policy makes a huge difference in promoting safer transportation practices for child passengers,” Macy said in a news release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on child passenger safety.

SOURCES: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, news release, Aug. 4, 2025; Traffic Injury Prevention, July 31, 2025