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U.S. Child Safety Seat Laws: Are they Effective, and Who Complies?

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  • Lauren E. Jones
  • Nicolas R. Ziebarth

Abstract

This paper assesses the effectiveness of child safety seat laws in the United States. Over the past 35 years, these laws have steadily increased mandatory child safety seat restraint ages. We exploit state‐year level variation in the age until which children are required to ride in child safety seats to estimate triple difference models using Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data from 1975 to 2011. Our findings show that increasing the age thresholds is effective in increasing the actual age of children in safety seats. Across the child‐age distribution, restraint rates increase by between 10 and 30 percentage points or by between 50 and 170 percent, in the long run. We also estimate the impact of the child safety seat laws on the likelihood that a child dies in a fatal accident. We find that the laws saved up to 39 children per year. Finally, we find that the laws primarily induce compliant parents to switch from traditional seatbelt use to child safety seat use, with only small effects among parents who do not restrain their children.

Suggested Citation

  • Lauren E. Jones & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2017. "U.S. Child Safety Seat Laws: Are they Effective, and Who Complies?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 584-607, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:36:y:2017:i:3:p:584-607
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/pam.22004
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    Cited by:

    1. Milad Delavary Foroutaghe & Abolfazl Mohammadzadeh Moghaddam & Vahid Fakoor, 2020. "Impact of law enforcement and increased traffic fines policy on road traffic fatality, injuries and offenses in Iran: Interrupted time series analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Dafeng Xu, 2020. "Free Wheel, Free Will! The Effects of Bikeshare Systems on Urban Commuting Patterns in the U.S," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 664-685, June.
    3. repec:ajt:wcinch:73382 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Milad Delavary Foroutaghe & Abolfazl Mohammadzadeh Moghaddam & Vahid Fakoor, 2019. "Time trends in gender-specific incidence rates of road traffic injuries in Iran," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-15, May.
    5. D. Mark Anderson & Sina Sandholt, 2019. "Are Booster Seats More Effective than Child Safety Seats or Seat Belts at Reducing Traffic Fatalities among Children?," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 42-64, Winter.
    6. Elizabeth Lemmon, 2018. "Utilisation of personal care services in Scotland: the influence of unpaid carers," CINCH Working Paper Series 1802, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    7. Fischer, Martin & Karlsson, Martin & Prodromidis, Nikolaos, 2021. "The Long-Term Effects of Hospital Deliveries," IZA Discussion Papers 14562, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

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