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Westat experts will be participating at the 2025 Discussions Advancing Research in Transportation Safety (DARTS) Conference to be held January 9-11, 2025, in Washington, DC. This conference provides an opportunity to connect, learn, and share insights with fellow researchers and industry experts with the goal of advancing road safety. Westat’s occupant protection experts Adele Polson and Doreen De Leonardis, PhD, will be presenting on 2 different topics aimed at improving child passenger safety. Vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children birth through 3 years of age, and Westat’s research is working to change that.
Digital Solutions for Better Car Seat Safety
Child passenger safety technicians (CPSTs) and their work to educate caregivers about how to correctly install and use child restraint systems (CRSs) are critical to reducing these deaths. The information gathered during car seat checks helps experts understand current safety practices and common errors. These standardized data are necessary to understand the scope of the child passenger safety problem and effectively develop solutions.
The National Digital Car Seat Check Form (NDCF) provides a free platform for collecting this crucial seat check data. The NDCF started in 2018 and has steadily grown with users in every state, now with over 250,000 car seat checks and counting. Polson’s presentation, The National Digital Car Seat Check Form: Detailed Data and Analysis on Car Seat Use, will discuss Westat’s work to provide CPSTs, program leads, and vehicle and car seat manufacturers the data needed to develop solutions that improve child passenger safety.
Westat creates and releases over 4,000 customized data dashboards monthly. The NDCF Dashboard provides charts, graphs, and maps covering:
- Number and type of car seat checks
- Detailed misuse information
- Car seat installation details
- Vehicle details
- Tools to explore data
Westat also recently developed the Car Seat Check Coverage Map, an interactive map that identifies areas of the US with underserved communities or children who are missing out on car seat checks. Westat is providing CPS stakeholders the data needed to make changes in their communities.
Child Safety Concerns in the Ride-Share Era
Beyond traditional car seat safety concerns, emerging transportation trends are creating new challenges for child passenger safety. Ride-share use has steadily increased over recent years. However, until recently, no one had examined how children are restrained when traveling in these vehicles. De Leonardis’s presentation, Child Passenger Safety Perceptions and Practices in Ride-Sharing Vehicles, will be on a study that Westat conducted to quantify this issue.
Westat observed child passengers in ride-share vehicles and determined that restraint use for these children is substantially lower than national estimates. In fact, substantial percentages of infants, toddlers, and child passengers were traveling unrestrained. This work is the first step in identifying, measuring, and addressing this emerging risk to children.
Focus Areas
Human Factors Research Transportation Transportation SafetyCapabilities
Data Collection Data Collection Modes