Cargo Vans with a Passenger
Air
Bag
and without an
Air
Bag
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Children who are up against, or very close to,
an air bag when it inflates can be seriously
injured or killed. Air bags plus lap-shoulder
belts offer outstanding protection for adults
and older children, but not for young children
and
infants. Neither the vehicle’s safety belt
system nor its air bag system is designed for
them. Young children and infants need the
protection that
a
child restraint system can
provide.
Newborn infants need complete support,
including support for the head and neck. This
is necessary because
a
newborn infant’s neck
CAUTION: (Continued)
is
weak and its head weighs
so
much
compared with the rest of its body. In
a
crash,
an infant in
a
rear-facing seat settles into the
restraint,
so
the crash forces can be
distributed across the strongest part of an
infant’s body, the back and shoulders. Infants
always should be restrained in appropriate
infant restraints. However, infants, who should
be restrained
in
a
rear-facing child restraint,
cannot ride safely in this vehicle.
The body structure of
a
young child is ite
unlike that of an adult or older child,
for^
whom
the safety belts
are
designed.
A
young child’s
hip bones are still
so
small that the vehicle’s
regular safety belt may not remain low on the
hip bones, as it should. Instead, it may settle
CAUTION: (Continued)
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