The proper use of seat belts and child safety seats can drastically reduce crash-related deaths and injuries. In fact, data indicate that the correct use of child safety seats reduce the risk of infant death by as much as 71 percent and the death of toddlers by more than 50 percent. If child safety seat compliance had been 100 percent in that year, an additional 195 lives would have been saved.
Teenagers die in motor vehicle crashes at twice the rate of the rest of the population.
This data does not even include teenagers' high incidence of serious injuries resulting in lifelong disabilities. Teenage drivers in the New York Capital District, which includes Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer and Saratoga, typify the statistics of the national population. A 1995 study of 2,588 high school students, primarily in the Capital District, indicated a very high rate of alcohol consumption associated with teenage driving. At the end of 1998, the Corporate Community Partnership for Traffic Safety was formed to prevent death and injury to infants, children and young adults in the Capital District. The Partnership encompasses a variety of companies and organizations throughout the Capital District.