
Secure It Correctly
A 6-year-old child died Thursday from injuries sustained in a car crash Wednesday on State Highway 62 in Morgan County Tennessee.
According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the child was a passenger in a 1999 Ford Explorer driven by a 40-year-old woman who was following a slow line of traffic going east on the road, when it stopped suddenly. The woman braked and veered across the centerline, going into oncoming traffic, where her vehicle was struck, head-on, by a dump truck. Police are not sure whether the child’s safety seat was being used properly.
As an experienced Nashville auto accident lawyer, my first thought is that the driver wasn’t paying attention and was somehow distracted from the traffic ahead of her and this was the cause of the accident. I don’t have sufficient information to determine whether the child safety seat was being used properly, but under most circumstances, if used properly, child safety seats save lives if they are used.
Child safety seats reduce fatal injury by 71 percent for infants (less than 1 year old) and by 54 percent for toddlers (1 to 4 years old) in passenger cars. Young children restrained in child safety seats have an 80 percent lower risk of fatal injury than those who are unrestrained.
Tennessee was the first state in the country to pass a Child Passenger Protection Law requiring children to be restrained in child safety seats (car seats and booster seats).
A. A child under one year old, or any child weighing less than 20 pounds, must be in a child passenger restraint system (car seat) that is facing the rear of the car.
B. Children who are one through three years old, and who weigh more than 20 pounds, must be in a child passenger restraint system that is facing forward.
C. Children who are four through eight years old and whose height is under four feet, nine inches, must be in a belt positioning booster seat system (child booster car seat) and wearing a seatbelt.
These seats should be in the rear seat of the car, if possible. The children can’t make the decision to protect themselves, this is the legal responsibility of the parents. It is also the responsibility of the parents to teach by example. If you are driving and witness a parent driving without having their child properly restrained it is your duty to notify the authorities. Call 911 is you are in an urban area and *847 in a rural area. Make the call and save a child’s life.
If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee highway automobile accident contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident law firm of Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to determine your rights and remedies