AAP Wants to Ban Kids in Back of Trucks

N E W   Y O R K, Oct. 2, 2000 -- A national effort to prevent kids from riding in the back of pickup trucks could save nearly a hundred lives a year, a new report says.

The American Academy of Pediatrics report, released today, called on state governments to pass legislation that would ban children from riding in the cargo area, also known as the beds or backs, of pickup trucks. The group also is pushing for better safety counseling for parents purchasing these vehicles. The report further outlined a number of dangers for children riding inside truck cabs, which rarely have the rear seats considered safe for child passengers.

“Increasingly pickup trucks are being used as family vehicles instead of as farm equipment,” says Marilyn J. Bull, the pediatrics association’s chairwoman on Injury and Poison Prevention. She hopes today’s report will lead to heightened awareness on the part of physicians and their patients that cargo is never safe for transportation purposes and that great care needs to be taken when riding with kids in the cabs of trucks.

“Travel in the cargo area of a pickup truck is a major occupant protection issue that disproportionately involves youth,” the report says. Citing the Federal Highway Administration, it says children and adolescents made up 77 of the 161 passenger deaths in the cargo area of pickups in 1997.

More Legislation Needed?

Only 24 states currently have laws placing restrictions on kids riding in the back of pickup trucks, the pediatrician group says. While legislation varies from state to state, most bans on truck bed riding apply to children under 16, according to Stephen Oesch, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit research organization funded by automobile insurers.

Many states make exceptions for parades, farm operations and emergencies, he said. New Jersey is the only state that prohibits riding in the open bed of a pickup truck without exception.

Some may consider the New Jersey law tough, but truck manufacturers say it’s basic. “Riding in the bed of a pickup truck is unacceptable practice, regardless of the age,” says Terry Rhadigan spokesman for General Motors Safety Communications in Detroit, Mich.

Although seat belts in the cargo beds could save lives, Rhadigan concedes, the truck manufacturers are not required to install them in the truck beds because the vehicles are designed to transport cargo and not humans. General Motors has no plans to create restraints in truck beds, he says.

Today’s American Academy of Pediatrics Report calls on physicians to help spread the word about cargo bed dangers, saying doctors should advocate more effective state legislation banning dangerous truck riding practices and should inform their patients and the public of risky riding practices.

To educate the public and legislators about the dangers of cargo beds, the National Highway Transport Safety Administration and the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the prevention of unintentional injury to children, offers a fact sheet called “Kids Aren’t Cargo.”

According to the NHTSA, Texas led the nation in cargo truck fatalities in 1998. The state prohibits children under 12 to ride in the back of a truck going faster than 35 miles per hour.