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| Statistics Represent Real People |
 The following is a portion of the testimony provided to the United States Senate by Autumn Alexander Skeen of Washtington state, mother of Anton, youngster killed despite being buckled in an adult belt.
"Washington state law said you could buckle chidlren Anton's size and weight - nearly 50 pounds and too big for a child car seat -- into seat belts. I'm a journalist; I had researched the law in 1993, writing on the lack of child passenger safety laws on Indian reservations, so I felt knowledgeable about the law. I was a mom who played by the ruls - bike helmets, limited TV time, brushed teeth and bedtime by 8:30. He was a sunny child, loving smart, healthy--everything a parent could want.
He and I headed toward Central Washington, planning to visit friends there before driving on to Oregon. Two and a half hours into our drive, we were traveling approximately 65 miles an hour on I82, crossing a high desert steppe, a desolate place used by the army as a firing range. Anton's head leaned against the window as he fell asleep in the warm sun. When the noon news faded I reached for the car radio, which was positioned exceptionally low, just over the car's hump. At the same time, we passed a semi-truck in the right-hand lane. And basically that's all I remember. At the same time I leaned over, we apparently hit a gust of wind, drifting onto the shoulder, which had no rumble strips. I must have startled when I realized where we were and over corrected. The wheels bit into the volcanic ash and sand, tripping the vehicle into a triple roll.
They found me, unconscious in the car, critically injured, but nonetheless alive. The seat belt held me in, saving my life. But next to me, they found no one. When the Washington State Patrol examined the car, they found Anton's seat belt still clicked shut, but Anton was in the median, dead from massive head injuries. The seat belt had failed to hold him in, and he was thrown out, only to have the car roll over him. And just that fast, this beautiful boy was gone, never to be seen nor held by me again. Anton did get to the cabin in Oregon in the end but as ashes, ashes we spread in the cold Metolius River. I have wept a river since then, too, for the pain of missing him and the pain of knowing what he has missed is an insurmountable sorrow for his father and me.
Too late, in retrospect I see how ludicrous it was to think its ill fit would suffice. But I extrapolated then that if the law said it was OK, someone somewhere had tested the engineering. Adult seat belts are better than nothing, nonetheless they present an illusion of safety, a lie in effect, to these children who trust us with their very lives, the same way I naively trusted the law. I'm not the only one. Parents are awash in health and safety messages. Their priority-filters tell them that if a warning is not law, the potential is not life threatening. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to car crashes. In our commuter society, children travel more than 1,000 car trips a year and yet they are subjected to the capricious nature of state child passenger safety laws, all of which fall short of best practice."
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