12:00 AM CST on Sunday, March 12, 2006

Tony Hartzel

When it comes to vehicle safety, young children and teenage drivers rightfully get a lot of attention.

Just don't forget about the "tweens," either, says one recent national study with a significant local connection.

The Injury Prevention Center of Greater Dallas participated in a four-month study by the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety Inc.

The coalition published findings last month on the habits of child passengers from about age 8 to 13. Safety experts have long recommended that children in those age ranges should sit only in the back seat and wear seat belts.

State law requires that all children younger than 5 use a car seat or booster seat and that all children younger than 17 use a seat belt.

Most new parents know about the dangers of air bags and child-safety seats, but air bags also pose a danger for preteens who sit in the front seat.

"Most parents aren't aware of this. They think that once children are out of their car-safety seats, they're out of the woods. But they aren't," said Martha Stowe, director of the injury prevention center.

Some of the same lessons also can apply to other groups.

"Air bags do save lives, but you need to be taller and bigger for an air bag not to cause a lot of injuries," Ms. Stowe said. "Putting frail, elderly passengers in the front seat is not a good idea, either."

The center studied patterns of adults dropping off children at Arcadia Park Elementary School and at Sidney Lanier Elementary School in West Dallas before and after public education campaigns about child-occupant safety.

The five-month study found mixed results. The number of children riding in the back seat increased by 52 percent, but Arcadia Park students' seat-belt use fell by almost 20 percent.

The study also found some good news for parents.

"One of the things we learned pretty quickly is that kids listen to their parents at that age," Ms. Stowe said. "We need to be a lot more involved with their parents."

Battles over the car radio led to many of the debates about where children would sit. Youths want to operate the car radio from the front seat. To encourage children to stay in the back seat, study sponsors awarded inexpensive headphone radios to the students at the school with the most improvement in compliance rates.

Students drew posters, made regular announcements and handed out homemade bracelets among their friends to encourage classmates to sit in the back seat and buckle up.

"We found that some parents in this community were really unaware of the risk," Ms. Stowe said. "But they all had stories to tell about knowing someone who had been in a car wreck."

In the future, the injury prevention center hopes to get more funding to do more studies involving parents and other adults, including youth sports coaches.

Observers hope to study back-seat and seat-belt compliance rates among student athletes after daylight-saving time begins. Some coaches already have taken on the task, telling their athletes that they can't play on the team if they're not buckled up in the back seat, Ms. Stowe said.

"If you can keep them understanding safety issues, it's a big step toward them being safer as a teen when they're driving," she said.

Elsewhere:

• The Texas Transportation Commission recently approved spending $5.2 million to install median barriers and improve lighting on State Highway 114 in Irving. Workers should start installing wire rope safety fences and cable barriers along 8.7 miles of the highway in April. Work should be finished in September.

• The Fort Worth Transportation Authority will run the Safari Shuttle Zoo Trolley from the Trinity Railway Express this week. Rail patrons can catch the Route 18 shuttle from the Intermodal Transportation Center station to the Fort Worth Zoo. The shuttle will run every 30 minutes from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Shuttle service will run from 9:40 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. Rides are free with a valid TRE day pass.

Tony Hartzel can be reached at thartzel@dallasnews.com and at P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265.