Nearly Half of the Florida Children Killed in Crashes Weren't Buckled In

01Nearly half had no restraint at all

Of 239 children age 12 and under killed while riding in a Florida vehicle over five years, here is what they were — or weren't — buckled into.

Forty-three percent — nearly half — of the children who died were completely unrestrained: no car seat, no booster, no seat belt. Only about one in four was in the car seat or booster that fits a child's body. Another quarter were in an adult seat belt alone, which on a small child can ride across the neck and abdomen and do harm of its own. The single most important safety device a parent controls was simply not being used for almost half of the children who died.

43% of the children who died had no restraint at all. Nearly a quarter were thrown from the vehicle.

The consequence shows up in the most physical way possible: 23% of the children killed — nearly one in four — were ejected from the vehicle in the crash. A properly restrained child is very rarely thrown from a car. Ejection is, overwhelmingly, what happens to a child who wasn't buckled in.

02The older the child, the less protected

You might expect the babies and toddlers to be the most exposed. The data shows the opposite: protection falls away as children get older, and it falls off a cliff for the oldest group.

For the youngest children, four in ten who died were unrestrained — already far too many. But among 8-to-12-year-olds, it was more than half. This is the age when the car seat gets retired, the booster gets left behind as 'babyish,' and the child is handed an adult seat belt — or nothing. It is also, as the next section shows, the exact age Florida law stops requiring anything at all.

For 8-to-12-year-olds, more than half who died were unrestrained — the age the car seat comes out and nothing replaces it.

03Florida's law stops at six

Florida has one of the weakest child-passenger laws in the country, and the crash data falls exactly into the gap it leaves.

What Florida law requires for children in a moving vehicle (Fla. Stat. 316.613).

At age six, Florida's car-seat requirement simply ends. From then on the law asks only for the same seat belt an adult wears — even though safety experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and federal regulators, recommend a booster seat until a child is about 4 feet 9 inches tall, which most children don't reach until somewhere between 8 and 12. A seat belt built for a 5-foot-8 adult crosses a small child's soft belly and neck instead of the hips and shoulder, and in a crash it can injure as much as protect. Florida's law leaves the 6-to-12 group — the group dying unrestrained most — to exactly that.

Florida stops requiring a child seat at six. The children dying unrestrained most are the ones the law no longer protects.

04What every parent should know

The law is a floor, not a plan. A few things are true regardless of what the statute requires.

• Boost until the belt fits — about 4'9"A child is ready for an adult seat belt only when the lap belt sits low across the hips and the shoulder belt crosses the middle of the shoulder and chest — usually around 4 feet 9 inches tall, often age 8-12. Until then a booster is doing real work, whatever the child's age.
• The back seat is saferChildren under 13 are safest in the back seat, away from the force of a front airbag.
• Florida's law is the minimum, not the goalMeeting the statute (a belt at age six) is not the same as protecting your child. The crash data is what the minimum looks like in practice.
• If your child was hurt in a crashA child's restraint status doesn't erase a claim against an at-fault driver, but it can become an issue — get the child medically checked and documented, and get advice before dealing with insurers. Our tools can help: /tool/lawyer.

Practical takeaways.