The Mapfre Foundation has conducted a study entitled 'Priorities in Spain in the safety of children occupying vehicles'. The paper analyzes the statistics related to traffic accidents (during the period 2005/08) in which children from 0 to 14 years old, occupants of all types of vehicles in Spain have been implicated.
One of the conclusions is that four out of ten children who lose their lives in a traffic accident did not use protection systems. The work has included both unharmed and injured or deceased children as a result of the accident.
The study reveals that 40% of the children died near their home, specifically within 50 kilometers of the same, a fact that is very relevant if one takes into account that one of the most used excuses by parents for not using Children's chairs is precisely taking the car for short distances.
The objective of this work is to describe the circumstances in which such accidents occur. It is intended that the information may be used in the future for the design or prioritization of child road safety measures.
Vulnerability of the little ones
In the event of a traffic accident, there is a greater chance that a child will be injured than if it were an adult. The percentage of children who are unharmed is 23% compared to 34% of adults, these data demonstrate the vulnerability of children to suffer some type of injury.
In fact, it is surprising that one in ten deceased children is less than one year old, which may reflect the greater fragility of young children.
The protection systems (belt, child restraint system or helmet for two-wheelers) would be able to prevent more than half of the serious or fatal injuries suffered by occupants who do not use them. The study shows that if all children used protection systems, more than half of said 40% of the deceased could be prevented from using protection systems. In other words, fatal child accidents would be automatically reduced by 20%
In the table that you will find below you can see how fortunately the mortality in children victims of traffic accidents has been reduced over the four years covered by the study.
Context and circumstances in which accidents occur object of the study
Similarly, the study shows that the accident with child victims occurs especially as a result of a driver distraction that results in an exit of the vehicle track. In addition, child accidents are mainly diurnal, since 70% of all deceased children between the ages of 0 and 14 occur during the day and in the summer months.
As for autonomous communities, they lead with worse numbers of deaths and serious injuries are Andalusia, Castilla y León, Castilla La Mancha and Catalunya. On the contrary, the communities with the least child fatal accidents between 2005 and 2008 are La Rioja, the Basque Country, Extremadura and Cantabria.
And about the type of roads, those in which the most car accidents occur that take children as occupants, are conventional roads without unfolding: two out of three victims traveled on single-lane roads for each direction. On motorways and highways, almost one in four children occupying vehicles lose their lives.
Nearly 80% of the children occupying vehicles involved in traffic accidents were traveling in cars or light vans.
One of the most important conclusions established is that For every child who dies, seven others are seriously injured, and 53 more suffer minor injuries. For this reason, the actions must be directed both to the prevention of the deceased and to the prevention of the injured or disabled.
Images | Olaf on Flickr, Mapfre Foundation
Source | Mapfre Foundation
More information | Family and Road Safety
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