Recognizing National Child Passenger Safety Week

Floor Speech

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Ms. TITUS. Madam Speaker, I rise today during National Child Passenger Safety Week (September 20-26, 2020) to recognize the great strides we have made protecting our most vulnerable passengers: our children. We have moved from a high in the 1970's of over 6,000 deaths annually of children under 14 to fewer than 1,300 such deaths in 2018. While one death is too many, this is a monumental shift. Much of our progress is the result of child passenger safety (CPS) efforts to secure children correctly in car seats that meet federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) and are installed correctly in vehicles during every ride.

Today, motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of childhood injuries and fatalities and there is more we can do to protect children. The more than 43,000 nationally certified child passenger safety technicians (CPSTs) are a great resource for new parents and caregivers who need help with the proper installation and use of car seats. Their expertise in choosing and installing car seats has saved lives, and there is a new platform to help them do this important job even better.

Over the past several years, the National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NDCF) was created through a partnership of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah, the National Child Passenger Safety Board (NCPSB), Tennessee Tech University's iCube, and Westat. The NDCF, managed by the National Safety Council, is the first national electronic car seat check data collection tool that is available to all nationally certified child passenger safety technicians in the United States.

In addition to streamlining the collection of national data, this information can assist state child passenger safety coordinators in considering where services may need to be expanded to meet the needs of all families, including those in rural and underserved communities. In fact, this data can help support the provisions I authored in H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act, to support expansion of CPST training for underserved populations.

Highway Safety Offices can tailor state marketing campaigns that address child passenger safety and include information about the highest forms of car seat misuse in their state. Further, available data will lend insight into trends and patterns regarding misuse of car seats and vehicle compatibility. This information has the potential to influence engineering and design of car seats and vehicles and subsequently increase safety for vehicle occupants.

The NDCF has been in development for almost four years through an iterative process involving diverse representation from the field of child passenger safety. As of September 20, 2020, 2,743 CPSTs have created NDCF user accounts and more than 31,000 car seat check forms have been submitted to the system. Every state in the United States has registered CPSTs and has submitted data to this NDCF. The NDCF is also in use in the territories and regions covered by the Indian Health Services.

The hope is to have the opportunity for the NDCF to improve the safety of our children. Data that can identify areas of need, recurring fault mechanisms, lack of understanding on installation, and other problems lead to reforms for everyone using car seats. These improvements will save children's lives.

It is fitting that during Child Passenger Safety week I recognize this major step forward in improving national CPS. I encourage my colleagues to recognize the hard work of CPSTs in their communities who give their time and talent for their labor of love--keeping children safe.

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