Examining the relative effectiveness of different message framing strategies for child passenger safety: recommendations for increased comprehension and compliance.

Background: Age-appropriate child restraints and rear seating dramatically reduce injury in vehicle crashes. Yet parents and caregivers struggle to comply with child passenger safety (CPS) recommendations, and frequently make mistakes when choosing and installing restraints. The purpose of this research was to evaluate various methods of framing CPS recommendations, and to examine the relative effectiveness on parents' knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions related to best practices and proper use of child restraints.

Use of top tethers with forward-facing child restraints: observations and driver interviews.

Objective: Despite the safety benefits, many parents do not use top tethers with forward-facing child restraints. Detailed information was collected about why parents are not using tethers.

Methods: The sample included 479 drivers who had forward-facing child restraints installed in passenger vehicles equipped with tether anchors.

Medical review process and license disposition of drivers referred by law enforcement in Virginia.

Introduction: Medically at-risk drivers come to the attention of licensing authorities through referrals from a variety of sources, including: physicians, family members, court systems, and law enforcement. A recently sponsored project by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration examined a training intervention for law enforcement to increase their awareness of medical conditions and medications that impair driving and the procedures for reporting these drivers in Virginia.

Method: A component of this project included an evaluation of the medical review process and licensing outcomes for 100 drivers randomly selected from a pool of over 1,000 drivers referred from law enforcement officers to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles over a 6-month period in 2007 and 2008 prior to any training program intervention.

Observed LATCH use and misuse characteristics of child restraint systems in seven states.

Introduction: Although the LATCH System (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) holds the promise of simplifying the installation of a child restraint system (CRS) to the vehicle's seat, many drivers transporting young children have difficulties using this technology. This paper reports on an observation study of LATCH use and misuse.

Method: Observations of approximately 1,000 children less than 5 years of age in CRSs, in the back seats of vehicles that were equipped with tether and lower anchors, in seven states.

Child restraint system use and misuse in six states.

This project addressed use and misuse of child restraint systems (CRS) in the nation. CRS use and critical misuse observations were collected in the Fall of 2002 for 5527 children less than 36 kg (80 pounds) in 4126 vehicles in six states: Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Results showed that 62.