The Detroit News. While parents frequently fail to secure infants and toddlers in car seats, they almost never place older kids in booster seats needed to protect against death or serious injury because of ill-fitting seat belts. The failure to use boosters has long been a hidden problem in child passenger safety because parents often move their kids directly from a child seat to a seat belt designed for adults. About 7 percent of children weighing between 40 and 80 pounds are placed in booster seats, which position occupants so that the lap belt lies low around bony hips and thighs rather than high around fragile abdomens, and the shoulder belt lies across the sternum instead of the neck.
Kids are uncomfortable and often put the shoulder belt behind their back.
That leaves them with no upper body protection and more vulnerable to head and neck injuries as well as the spinal cord and internal organ injuries that could be caused by the lap belt. Car crashes represent the biggest single cause of death for children in that age group, said Phil Haseltine, president of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and head of a blue-ribbon panel that last year recommended more be done to promote booster seat use.