Media Contact: Shane Austin,
saustin@saferoads.org
202.425.2776
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Statement by Cathy Chase, President, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, on Child Passenger Safety Week 2025
(September 17, 2025, Washington, DC) | Child Passenger Safety Week (September 21-27) reminds us of the heartbreaking fact that motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of injury and death for children. In 2023, traffic crashes killed 700 children aged 14 and younger. Where restraint use was known, 43 percent of children killed were unrestrained.
Tools to prevent these tragedies exist. Here are key actions we urge occur this year:
- States must adopt and enforce the full suite of evidence-based child passenger safety laws recommended in our 2025 Roadmap to Safety Report. That means ensuring use of rear-facing seats until at least age two, booster seats for children who are past forward-facing safety seat limits but aren’t yet able to be safely secured by vehicle seat belts alone, a transition that usually occurs after age eight, and requiring children age 12 and under to ride properly restrained in the rear seat. No state has all three optimal laws.
- Congress should advance the School Bus Safety Act introduced by U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN). The legislation would ensure there are seat belts at every seat and buses are equipped with safety measures like electronic stability control, automatic emergency braking systems, event data recorders and fire protection safeguards. It also would create a grant program to help school districts purchase or modify school buses to meet these important safety upgrades.
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) must finish issuing rules on unattended child detection systems to prevent tragic “hot car” deaths and injuries and updates to seatback standards. While some incremental progress has been made, such as the Final Rule on rear seat belt reminders, NHTSA should move faster on these other lifesaving regulations.
- Parents and caregivers must always double-check that car seats, booster seats and seat belts are being used correctly on every trip. Also, always obey traffic safety laws; never drive while distracted, impaired or tired. Your young passengers, who are future drivers, are watching and learning from your behavior.
This Child Passenger Safety Week, let us all recommit to doing everything we can to protect children traveling on our roadways.
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About Advocates
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety is an alliance of consumer, medical, public health, law enforcement and safety groups and insurance companies and agents working together to make America’s roads safer. Advocates’ mission is the adoption of federal and state laws, policies and programs that prevent motor vehicle crashes, save lives, reduce injuries, and contain costs.