It is a fact that aging adults, and grandparents in particular get in more automobile accidents than most. However a new study shows that kids are twice as safe when their grandparents are behind the wheel instead of their parents.

Age can increase certain risk factors for dangerous driving, such as having slower reflexes and not being able to make quick decisions in confusing or heavy traffic, but older drivers tend to have some safe habits such as not speeding as often and they take fewer risks when changing lanes or merging into high speed traffic.

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children ages 3 to 14.

Dr. Fred Henretig, emergency medicine attending physician at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia stated:

"We were very surprised by the finding that most people's intuition turned out to be wrong. What we learned was that grandparents drive very, very cautiously when their grandchildren are on board, making a special effort to drive safely. Overall, the five years of crashes studied involved 217,976 children. Grandma and grandpa were driving in 10% of all car accidents (the rest occurred when parents were driving), and responsible for only about 7% of the total injuries to children under 16."

Henretig and his colleagues took into account the smaller proportion of crashes among grandparents, but even after adjusting for that and other factors like drivers' gender, drivers' seatbelt use, children's use of seat restraints, whether children sat in the front or back seat, and the vehicle type, the lower injury rate among grandparents remained statistically significant.

However, while 98% of both parents and grandparents involved in crashes used some type of safety restraint for their children, 25% of parents did so according to car safety recommendations, while only 19% of grandparents followed proper guidelines for securing kids.

Many older drivers may not be aware of the latest car-seat guidelines by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The pediatricians group recommends that infants younger than 2 ride in the back seat in a rear-facing child seat; once they outgrow that, they can move to a front-facing car seat, which must remain in the back seat. Older children too big for these seats can move to a booster seat until they reach the height of 4 ft. 9 in. After that, they should stay in the back seat of the car, but use lap or shoulder belts.

Henretig continues:

"We'd like to see increased educational efforts and advocacy initiatives targeted to grandparents in particular. There are millions of programs on child safety tips, and driving safely with children on board, but very little of it is targeted to grandparents."

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all infants should ride rear-facing starting with their first ride home from the hospital. All infants and toddlers should ride in a rear facing car safety seat until they are two years of age or until they reach the highest weight or height allowed by their car safety seat's manufacturer.

Correctly used child safety seats are extremely effective and reduce the risk of death as much as 71%. Nearly 73% of child restraints are not installed or used correctly and nearly half of kids 14 and under who died in crashes were completely unrestrained.

Sources: The American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatrics Journal

Sy Kraft