Car Accidents Involving Children Caused by Negligence Have Increased Annually, Korea Consumer Agency Announces Consumer Safety Alert
 As the vacation season approaches, car drivers are more likely to be accompanied by their children. Due to the increasing number of children being harmed in avoidable accidents involving cars, parents need to remain alert to the potential for such accidents.

 The Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) analyzed 309 cases of injury in such accidents involving children under the age of 10, which were reported to the Consumer Injury Surveillance System (CISS) from January 2009 to June 2012. According to the analysis, the number of child-related accidents has continued to rise every year, as seen in the annual number of cases, i.e. 65 in 2009, 89 (+36.9%) in 2010, and 109 (+22.5%) in 2011. In particular, accidents related to young children under 5 accounted for 254 of these cases (82.2%).

 In categorizing the types of accidents, most accidents (221 cases, 71.5%) involved children's body parts being caught in the door or window of a car. Furthermore, in 46 cases (14.9%), children were hit either by the inside or outside of part of a car body. This is followed by 17 cases (5.5%) in which children fell out of a car after leaning against an improperly shut car door. Lastly, 13 cases (4.2%) involved children being burned by a car cigarette lighter.

 The majority of injuries were sustained to children's hands and wrists (229 cases, 74.1%) and faces (64 cases, 20.7%). Meanwhile, the most common parts of a car involved in such safety accidents were car doors and door frames (232 cases, 75.1%).

The KCA have pointed out that car accidents involving children can be prevented if parents behave in a thoughtful and careful manner. This is because most cases are caused by negligence - such as parents closing car doors or windows without paying due attention to the whereabouts of their child, or children slipping down and bumping into parts of the car's internal structure while playing on the car seats. Therefore, parents are strongly advised to take the following extra precautions when traveling with their children:

▲Check whether their children's hands and feet risk being caught in the parts of a car when opening and closing the car doors.

▲Discourage children from standing on car seats to avoid the risk of injury by slipping or falling.

▲Put the car cigarette lighter into its socket immediately after using it so that children cannot pull it out, in order to prevent the risk of burns.

▲Make sure children are never left alone in a car.

▲Teach children not to treat the inside of a car as a playing field.

< Cases of car accidents caused by negligence >

[Case1] In March 2011, Han○○(male, aged 1) sustained a bruise on the ring finger of his left hand when his mother accidentally closed the car door on him.

[Case2] In March 2011, Park○○(female, aged 4) sustained bruises to her fingers when they were caught in the car window as her father rolled it up without noticing that she had stuck her right hand out of the car window.

[Case3] In December 2011, Kwak○○(male, aged 4) strained his elbow after trapping his arm in between the car seats while playing.

[Case4] In September 2011, Bae○○(male, aged 1) sustained a 2.5cm-diameter dent in the crown of his head after being hit by the car door frame while his mother was getting into the van holding him in her arms.

[Case5] In October 2011, Lee○○(male, aged 8) suffered lacerations to his head as a result of falling backwards and hitting his head against a handhold in the car while playing on the car seats.

[Case6] In December 2009, Chun○○(female, aged 1), while sitting in a stopped car, suffered multiple abrasions and lacerations to her nose and face upon falling out through the open car door.

[Case7] In February 2011, Kim○○(male, aged 8) sustained burns to the middle finger of his right hand after picking up a dropped cigarette lighter from the car floor.