In an edition of the “On Parents” newsletter in the Washington Post, Lauren Gravitz describes watching her son and other children get picked up for summer camp in a van in which the “campers were swallowed by their seat belts – shoulder belts hitting at their necks, lap belts laying across the soft part of their bellies.” According to Gravitz, a lot of programs, including “church youth groups” and “after-school taekwondo studios,” are utilizing “large passenger vans to provide unparalleled convenience and opportunity for busy kids of busy parents.” However, seat belts in such vehicles are designed “for an average adult’s height and mature skeleton,” and Grevitz describes why this is a safety issue. She adds that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration blocks entities which sell “new passenger vans from selling them to public schools as student transport.” However, the agency does not have the ability to “prevent sales of used vans, and those sales are rampant.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
