Children & Car Safety: Thinking Beyond the Car Seat to Protect Your Child from Accidents in the Tampa, FL Area

From the day you become a parent, you want your child to have a wonderful life, filled with joy and happiness. You are completely focused on protecting your child from misfortune which is why you have invested in a safe car and an age-appropriate car seat. These will certainly go a long way in helping protect your child from harm, but parents should be aware about other car dangers and how to prevent them, as well.

KidsAndCars.org is a website dedicated to raising awareness about the many types of car-related injuries and deaths children suffer. This website lists many ways that parents must remain vigilant about guarding their children from non-traffic fatalities, such as:

• Backovers—being backed over by an auto
• Frontovers—being hit by an auto moving forward
• Heatstroke—from being left in an auto
• Power window incidents—including power window strangulation
• Car theft while children are still in the auto—putting the child at significant risk of abduction, injury, and death
• Auto set in motion—putting young children in a situation where they are able to drive the car themselves (such as leaving a young child alone in a car that's running or has keys in the ignition)
• More

Currently, there is no state or federal agency keeping track of how many children are injured or killed in non-traffic incidents on private property, where most of these accidents tend to occur. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that over 9,000 children are treated for these types of injuries in emergency rooms every year. Furthermore, the KidsAndCars.org database—which is incomplete and should be considered the absolute lower boundary of estimates—has recorded more than 200 non-traffic child deaths per year nationwide.

The Tampa car accident attorneys at the law firm of Dale Appell, P.A. feel the utmost sympathy and concern for parents whose children are injured in any type of car accident, whether the accident happened in traffic, at home, or due to a malfunction of the vehicle itself. If you are a parent who would like more information about how to avoid these accidents, visit www.KidsAndCars.org. You may also contact our law firm for assistance and a consultation about any Tampa area personal injury case.