Child Safety Seats

They may squirm, wriggle, kick and scream, but young kids have be buckled into child safety seats. Every state has laws on its books that require it. And with good reason: When properly used, the seats reduce the risk of death in a crash by 69 percent for infants and by 47 percent for toddlers.

The guidelines for selecting the right restraints are quite simple. Infants up to one year of age and weighing up to 20 pounds should always be placed in a rear-facing safety seat. Older children are best protected in a forward-facing child seat with its own harness. Children who have reached 40 pounds and 40 inches in height should be moved to a booster seat to help the adult safety belt fit correctly. Only when your child is large enough so that the adult safety belt system in the vehicle fits the child correctly can you forget about safety seats. That means the lap belt should fit low over the child's upper thighs and the shoulder belt should rest on the child's shoulder - not across the neck or face.

And the message that safety experts make over and over again is that all child safety seats should be placed in the vehicle's rear seat. Small children are safest in back for two reasons:

First, the front seat provides additional impact protection during a front-end collision.

Second, activated passenger-side air bags pose a significant risk to young kids. If the new vehicle you fancy doesn't have a rear seat, then select one that has a switch to deactivate the passenger-side air bag. Many pickup trucks and sports cars without rear seats have these switches.

Make sure the child seat is properly secured; there's not much point in using a child seat is it isn't properly secured in the vehicle.