One-Quarter of Parents Have Driven Without Buckling Up Kids, Study Says

Edmunds.com

One-Quarter of Parents Have Driven Without Buckling Up Kids, Study Says

A study released on Monday found that an alarming percentage of parents have driven without buckling up their children, and that affluent, educated and young parents are the worst offenders.

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piredon

"Researchers note that 60 percent of crashes involving children occur 10 minutes or less from home." That's because most driving occurs 10 minutes or less from home. The funny thing about this is cars didn't have seatbelts not so many years ago. Everyone did not spontaneously die as soon as they got in one of those old "death traps". The vast majority lived to become our parents (I'm in my 30s). I'm actually a little happy that Americans are not as universally obsessed with safety as the media would have us believe. Now, I'm certainly not an advocate of leaving your kids unbuckled, but the total obsession with safety and never taking any risks is seriously dangerous to the continued greatness of this country. You read an article like this and you would think American parents should all be locked up for child endangerment. What we feed our children and how we raise them in general probably has a far greater impact on their longevity and well-being than just remembering to buckle them in. For instance, McDonalds feeds millions of American children on a daily basis. And hundreds of thousands of children are basically raised by paid nannies. And a sizeable minority of parents still smoke in this country (gasp!) But it's much harder to be judgmental about those things because we are probably not blameless. And a $2 million study does nothing to solve them. I should probably stop now...

garrym

You never know what life will throw you. The grandchildren get buyckled securely every time they ride with us. Not a big deal to get them safely restrained.
I have been buckling my seatbelt since the mid-seventies. Everyone in our family used seatbelts growing up. As adults they still buckle up and ensure their children do too. I could not live with myself if a grandchild died unstrained in the event of a crash.

Smarten up you young, afflient American parents!