Proclamation 5770—National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week, 1988

Motor vehicle crashes are a major cause of death and disabling injury for America's children. The best way to protect children in automobiles is to use child safety seats and other safety restraints on every trip. We must alert parents and concerned citizens of the critical need to make child passenger safety a priority in every community, and we should recognize the thousands of people throughout our Nation who do so as they take part in programs and activities in support of National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week. Fittingly, this special week falls just before Valentine's Day, when we express love and appreciation to family and friends.

Many people may be unaware that child passenger protection laws requiring the use of child safety seats and belt systems are in place in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. Correctly used, child safety seats are highly effective, reducing the risk of fatality among children under four by about 70 percent and of serious injury by about 67 percent. For older children, studies of the effectiveness of belt systems indicate that they can 'reduce the risk of fatalities and serious injuries by 40 to 55 percent.

Effective child passenger protection requires awareness that the efficacy of child safety seats and belt systems depends on their correct installation and use. A nationwide effort is underway to boost correct child seat use to 70 percent or higher by 1990 through increasing public awareness and enforcement of child passenger protection laws and alerting parents about the importance of installing the restraints correctly and securing their children in them properly on every trip. With added concern for the proper installation and consistent use of these safety devices, we can prevent tragedies and save the lives of hundreds of children every year.

To encourage the people of the United States to protect their children properly in child safety seats and belt systems; to encourage safety and law enforcement agencies and others to promote greater use of these essential safety devices; and to inform the public about the serious dangers children can face as automobile passengers and the importance of child safety protection devices and their correct use, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 402, has designated the week of February 7-13, 1988, as "National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this week.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week of February 713, 1988, as National Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week. I ask all Americans to make sure that their children are fully protected by the correct use of child passenger protection devices. I call upon concerned citizens and government officials to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities in reaffirmation of our commitment to universal and correct use of child passenger protection devices.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of February, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth.

RONALD REAGAN