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Why it is important to protect children as pedestrians

On Behalf of | Oct 15, 2015 | Pedestrian Accidents

Good parents in Atlanta, Georgia, value the safety of their children even above their own. They go to great lengths to ensure that their children are in car seats if still young enough to need them, and securely buckled up regardless of their age. However, it is also important to make sure that children as pedestrians are also kept safe because many more of them are injured or killed walking than most people realize.

An estimated 19,183 suffered nonfatal injuries in incidents that were motor vehicle-related in 2012. While many people presume that injuries and deaths occur at intersections, 78 percent (348) of the child pedestrian deaths that occurred in 2013 happened at non-intersection locations.

Children at different age levels face different risks regarding being injured or killed as pedestrians. Teenagers are twice as likely to be killed as pedestrians than younger children. This may be in substantial measure because teenagers are much more likely than younger children to be out and about without their parents. It may also be because teenagers are, as every parent of one knows, prone to risky behavior as they explore independence and test limits.

Of course, if children under the age of 10 are not kept close by a parent, they may face a particular risk of suffering injury or death if they are unable to accurately gauge the danger of being near or in a road. Children of any age are most likely to be hurt or killed if they are hit by a van or SUV, due to the weight, size, and force of impact of those vehicles relative to passenger cars. For those reasons, it is critical that parents make sure their children are safe every waking hour on busy holidays like Halloween and year round just as much.

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