Impact of the Illinois child passenger protection act: a retrospective look.

This paper considers the Illinois child restraint use law which took effect in July 1983. This law requires parents to use safety seats for children under age 4, and seat belts or safety seats for those aged 4 or 5. ARIMA time series models and a monthly data set of fatalities and injuries from 1980 through 1986 were utilized. The law reduced the total number of children under 5 killed or injured in traffic crashes by 10% along with a 17% decline in the number of child injuries per crash. No spillover effect was found for older children.