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Car Crashes Are The #1 Cause of Death To Kids Ages 1-12

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Car crashes are the singular biggest event claiming the lives of our youth.

Car crashes are the #1 KILLER of American kids ages 1-12. 

We all go out while pregnant and make sure we invest in the best car seat, a lot of us go to the local firehouse and have them properly install it. Then we labor for hours, sometimes days and we finally drive our precious newborn home as safely as possible.

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If only we always drove home like we do on that drive.

As a mother I of course am trying to encourage other mothers and fathers to help spread the word. Our children are dying in mostly preventable crashes. 

We need to slow down, get off our phones, not tailgate and drive with more care. 

Keeping our kids safe goes beyond the car seat. It frustrates me that the media focuses on freak accidents and we all start to live in fear of events we truly can not predict. But these car crashes, a lot, can be avoided.

Talk about tailgating and using your phone at the dinner table. It is important. 

Kids Drowning in Pools vs. Kids Dying in Car Crashes

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With the weather warming up more kids will be swimming.

Pools and kids scare me to my core. Just this week I had a conversation with a woman about Fix The Toaster, I asked her if she knew that car crashes are the number one cause of death to kids. She said, no, she thought pool drowning would be. No, I said, car crashes.

But I wanted to know the statistics, so here you go.

Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two are children aged 14 or younger. Drowning ranks fifth among the leading causes of unintentional injury death in the United States.1 CDC

 

So according to the Centers for Disease, 2 kids, under the age of 14 die daily in drownings.

5 kids die daily in car crashes.

As the weather warms you will no doubt hear about kids drowning in pools. It is a sick fact and it frightens me of course.

But you will not hear of the kids dying in car crashes nearly as much.

The Baby on Board Sign, Why I Like It

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"Did you buy this?"

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My husband held the yellow Baby on Board sign by Safety First in horror and disbelief. Yes, I answered, but don't worry I've just got some ideas, it's for Fix The Toaster. He was relieved.

But the truth is my plans might makes him freak out more.

I plan to modify the sign. Add my own thoughts to it. And post my thoughts on the back of my minivan. I'll do this ever so often and post it here. I'll call it Read My Bumper Day.

I used to hate those signs, thinking the parents were egocentric, as if I care about your child more then my own life.

Now I think about the sign differently. At least it's asking nicely, please drive slowly or hey, this is why I am driving slowly.

Just yesterday I saw a sign that said Child On Board. I've never seen that.

So get ready for Read My Bumper Day. I'll only put my sign up for one day at a time. And I imagine I'll do it on days I'm driving on the freeway.

If you become inspired to put up your own version of a please drive safe bumper sticker please email me or post it using the hashtag #fixthetoaster

And if you are thinking I'm nuts....then let's pull out the old statistics again. The World Health Organization says that:

Key facts

  • About 1.3 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
  • Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people, aged 15–29 years.
  • Over 90% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries, even though these countries have less than half of the world's vehicles.
  • Nearly half (46%) of those dying on the world’s roads are “vulnerable road users”: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
  • Without action, road traffic crashes are predicted to result in the deaths of around 1.9 million people annually by 2020.
  • Only 15% of countries have comprehensive laws relating to five key risk factors: speeding, drinking and driving, and the use of motorcycle helmets, seat-belts and child restraints.

Tailgating Kills. Are You a Killer?

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According to Wikipedia: Approximately one third of rear-end collisions involve tailgating.

I live in a place that requires me to go down a huge hill, basically a mountain. It's a freeway and it's surprisingly uncongested for LA.

I have to stay in the right hand lane as the freeway I need requires one to exit on that side.

This leads a bunch of people in the right hand lane, the slow lane, all going down a mountain on a freeway. Fast.

I am comfortable going between 60-65. I'm pretty sure the speed limit is 65.

You would not know it from the cars whizzing by me. Fine let them whiz. I can't control them. But what really rattles me is when someone gets behind me and tails me on this freeway. I become stuck.

I need to exit so I need to stay in that lane. They say the safest thing to do is you are being tailed is to let the person pass you. But it would be unsafe for me to get over and then get back over again.

I believe that if you are tailgating you are saying F#$% you to the lives in front of you. Because if an incident occurs where the car in front of you has to stop, you will, 100% hit them. And if you are going down a freeway, downhill, at 70 miles per hour you will really hurt the lives in front of you and possibly many more from the sadness they would feel at the loss of life.

I think even the tailgater would probably suffer huge remorse from killing someone.

Remember the 3 second rule from drivers ed? Why aren't we adhering to it? My cousin was in a crash here on the LA freeways this year and she said it was incredibly frightening seeing all of the cars scramble to stop.

Since I have to go on this freeway a lot I've wanted to place a bumper sticker on my car, much to my husband's horror. I bought one that says:

Tailgating Kills, Please Leave Space

I like this one someone home made.

I haven't had the cajones to put it on my car but I think I might start making my own revolving bumper stickers. I want people to really get where I'm coming from.

Do you tailgate? Is it a problem in your area?

The faster we go the longer it takes to stop.

I don't want to crash at 70 MPH, do you? Have you ever been hit at 20MPH and said, "Wow, that hurt?" Imagine crashing at 50, 60? Imagine your kids crashing at that speed.

Don't we want to stop in time?

Do you value life enough to leave space? Daily I feel as if I'm surrounded by heartless, angry people on the roads, but I believe they just have not connected the dots yet. Or we as a society have forgotten the very basics.