FIRE!

Literally.  Actually.  Car crashes are the leading cause of unintentional injury for kids.  And unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for kids from age 1 on.  Fires and burns are #6 and it's not even close.

So naturally, when I saw this article, I assumed one of the ways would be GET THOSE KIDS OUT OF THE CAR!!!!!  Car crashes are THE leading cause of death for kids!  Not to mention driving your kids everywhere contributes to our physical inactivity problem!  Whenever possible, walk or bike to your destination!

Yeeah, okay, no I didn't.  Because everyone knows loving parents move their kids to the suburbs and take them everywhere in the car.  Actually, not even a car.  An SUV.  I mean, if you're a good parent.

For what it's worth, I agree with the other recommendations.  Learn CPR--absolutely. Teach your child to swim--hey, that one addresses the second leading cause of unintentional injury death for kids!  A measly second, compared to the numbers cars are posting, but second nonetheless.

Install smoke detectors and have a fire escape plan--please do.  When we learned about fire safety plans in second grade I kept trying to get my parents to make one because even though we lived in a little ranch house, I didn't know how to get my window screens out and they kept telling me not to worry about it and then I didn't sleep for a month because I didn't have the words to tell them "don't worry" was not comforting and then I became a doctor who focuses on preventive medicine because I still don't know how to work the screens in those windows, MOM!!!!

Ahem, where was I?   Ah yes.  Car seats...of course, if you're going to put your kids in a car, have them in an appropriate car seat.

But our fears around this are so out of whack.  Stranger danger was/is a big factor in pushing kids into cars, but it doesn't even come close (how pretentious am I, linking to my own blog post....). People are getting the police called on them because they let their kids walk to the park.  And yet we also are putting our kids in cars with strangers (whaaaaat?).

This week Kevin Klinkenberg had a fantastic post about, among other things, the "false dichotomy that cities and urban life are all about excitement, action and trendiness, while suburbs are essentially about what really matters – family, safety and cleanliness." 

But the suburban lifestyle, which confines people to the car, condemns them to exposing their kids over and over, multiple times per day, to the thing which puts them at the highest risk for death. Privileging cars in crowded cities does the same to kids (and adults) even if they're not the ones in the cars.

Look at those first two pictures again.  And really think: which one is more dangerous to kids.  It's the latter.  You'd do anything to protect your kids from that big, scary housefire on top: you dress them in non-flammable clothes, you put in smoke detectors, you'd run back in there yourself to drag them out. Why don't you feel the same way about the real killer?