Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children. With the advancements in materials and designs, it would seem as though this should not be the case. However, researchers believe that one of the contributing causes is the practice of switching a child from a rear-facing seat to a front-facing seat around the age of two and are now recommending that children remain in rear-facing seats until the child reaches the seat’s weight limit.
“Parents love when their children reach milestones, and turning that child around so that he or she can see out the front of the car is one of those milestones,” said John J. Sheehan, a Boston Car Accident Lawyer with the Law Office of John J. Sheehan. “However, this research indicates that just a little more patience can ensure that your child is as safe as possible in a car.”
The need for safety seats or boosters does not end at an early age. Children should be in either a child seat or in a belt-positioning booster seat until the lap and shoulder belts fit the child properly, most often, when the child reaches 4 feet 9 inches in height. The reason is simple: use of correct child seating lowers the risk of death or serious injury by seventy percent.
Following these recommendations can be important not only for the safety of your child, but for the possibility that your child is injured in an accident.
In any accident where parties seek to assign fault, each will look for opportunities to try and limit the ability of the other to make claims for injuries. Many times, the sides are looking for situations where a party’s actions contributed to their injuries, either partly or fully. This concept, known as “comparative negligence”, allows a judge or jury to reduce the damages assigned to one party by a percentage equal to the extent the other party’s actions contributed to their injuries.
In Massachusetts, the law is known as “modified comparative negligence”. With modified comparative negligence, if a party was injured but their own actions constitute 51 percent or more of the fault, the party is totally barred from any recovery. The idea is to only allow a plaintiff to recover damages where they are responsible for half of the blame or less. However, even if a party is only 20 percent to blame, they are still only entitled to 80 percent of the value of their overall damages.
This rule means that individuals should always act, to the extent possible, as any other reasonable person would. In Massachusetts, this would mean heeding the advice of experts to only turn children around in their car seats when the weight limit is exceeded and keep those children in booster seats until they can safely sit in the seat.
No one wants to put their child at risk. Following these recommendations will ensure that your child remains as safe as possible, and ensure that if they are injured in a vehicle, that you actions cannot be used against you.
