SAFE KIDS Worldwide, GM Share NTSB Leadership Award
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark V. Rosenker recently honored SAFE KIDS Worldwide and General Motors Corp. with its Safety Leadership Award for their efforts to ensure the proper installation of more than 1 million child restraint systems since the program began in 1997. At an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 26, Rosenker said, "We celebrate your extraordinary success and thank SAFE KIDS Worldwide, General Motors and Chevrolet for the work you have done. It is wonderful to hear [parents] say how the fitting stations and child seats saved their children's lives."
Improving child occupant protection has been on NTSB's Most Wanted List of safety improvements since 1997. Specifically, the board has made the following recommendation to the states and territories regarding child occupant safety: ensure that children up to eight years old are required by each state's mandatory child restraint use law to use child restraint systems and booster seats. Only seven states, American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands lack any law requiring that children between the ages of 4- and 8-years-old use booster seats.
Further issues on NTSB's Most Wanted List--including the texts of the specific safety recommendations, summaries of federal agency actions, and the status of each recommendation--can be found at www.ntsb.gov.