{"id":1175,"date":"2006-06-16T09:56:58","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T17:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/06\/now_if_only_britney_had_been_at_the_wheel.html"},"modified":"2006-06-16T09:56:58","modified_gmt":"2006-06-16T17:56:58","slug":"now_if_only_bri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/now_if_only_bri.html","title":{"rendered":"Now If Only Britney Had Been At The Wheel . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

When advocacy groups get ghoulish<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Two Staten Island girls who survived a 300-foot minivan plunge that killed their mother were strapped in the vehicle — highlighting the importance of seat belts and child safety seats, officials said yesterday.<\/p>\n

The Han sisters — Etana, 3, and Ariana, 5 — suffered minor bruises in Wednesday’s accident at Bear Mountain State Park in the Hudson Valley.<\/p>\n

Park Police Lt. David Love said Etana was strapped into her car seat and Ariana was wearing a seat belt when their minivan rolled off a cliff.<\/p>\n

The girls’ mother, Hejin Han, 35, was in front without her seat belt on and was killed.<\/p>\n

“It is a sad family tragedy. However, it shows that safety seats are extremely valuable to protect children,” said Stephanie Tombrello, executive director of SafetyBeltSafe U.S.A., a child-safety advocacy group.<\/p>\n

“The fact that these parents took the time to strap their kids in is what saved them,” Tombrello said.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only mistake, Tombrello added (well, with the notable exception of driving off a cliff in the first place), was that the five-year-old should have been in a booster seat:<\/p>\n

She said the 5-year-old should have been in a child booster seat, “but clearly that safety belt did its job.”<\/p>\n

She recommended that children ride in rear-facing car seats up to age 20 months to better protect them from frontal and side crashes. She also suggested that kids up to 80 pounds ride in booster seats.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When advocacy groups get ghoulish: Two Staten Island girls who survived a 300-foot minivan plunge that killed their mother were strapped in the vehicle — highlighting the importance of seat belts and child safety seats, officials said yesterday. The Han sisters — Etana, 3, and Ariana, 5 — suffered minor bruises in Wednesday’s accident at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tragicomic_ironic_obnoxious_or_absurd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}