Texas Personal Injury Lawyers – Jim Adler & Associates – Blog

Ever heard of a booster seat? They are life savers for kids who are too old for car seats but not old enough for seat belts. The National Transportation Safety Board says 3,500 child passengers between the ages of 4 and 8 died in traffic accidents between 1998 and 2007. The NTSB says about half of the children were not restrained. Most of the rest were wearing seat belts. Seat belts are not designed for young children who have outgrown car seats. A seat belt can choke a child or cause abdominal injuries during a crash. Booster seats position the belts correctly across a young child’s body. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia require booster seats for child passengers who have outgrown car seats. Twenty-one of these states mandate booster seats for children through age 7. The NTSB is urging Texas and six other states without booster seat laws to pass them soon. Other states that lack such laws include Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Ohio and South Dakota. Pediatricians are behind the push for a booster seat law in Texas during the state’s legislative session that is currently underway. A similar effort failed to win enough votes during Texas 2007 legislative session.
Safe Kids USA, a national safety organization with coalitions in major Texas cities and other cities across the United States, holds free booster and car seat clinics with national experts who train parents and care givers in the proper installation of car seats and booster seats. While car seats can be expensive, booster seats cost about $15.

We all love to cool off in a swimming pool when temperatures reach torrid levels. Floating along on our backs, we watch clouds and enjoy the sounds of summer as others splash in the water nearby. These idyllic scenes turn to horror when a child is sucked up against a powerful swimming pool drain by the hundreds of pounds of pressure that these drains can exert. The suction has disemboweled children, leaving them dead, paralyzed or scarred for life with welts on their abdomens shaped like the drain.
The 7-year old granddaughter of former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker was disemboweled in a pool in 2002. There was nothing emergency room doctors could do to save her life. A federal law now mandates covers for these drains for all pools with public access, including hotels, apartments and residential communities. But enforcement is spotty.
A CNN report in January 2009 revealed that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a small federal agency, is relying on state health and safety departments to enforce the law. But states have differing enforcement standards. Many pool operators say they have not had enough time to comply with the law and others say they are unable to obtain the drains. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the CPSC says pool owners will be liable if children are hurt in their pools despite difficulties in obtaining drain covers.