Skip to main content

Child Safety Survey

NHTSA's Child Safety Survey

The Child Safety Survey is a national study conducted on behalf of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help improve child transportation safety around the country.

The information collected in this survey will be used to help:

  • Make travel safer for children.
  • Give caregivers better information about child safety.
  • Build better child safety programs.

The study includes questions on safe travel with children and safety programs in the community. However, even if you don’t travel with children on a regular basis your responses are valuable. Participation is voluntary and you can be certain that all information you provide will be used for research purposes only.

Have questions about participating in the survey?

Please visit the website at www.ChildSafetySurvey.com

Call the toll-free survey hotline at: 1-855-411-0039

Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. ET

NHTSA is committed to respecting your privacy.  The information you provide will be kept separate from the information used to contact you to prevent anyone from identifying who gave the information. Survey results will be distributed only as summary statistics that cannot be used to identify anyone.

Your decision to participate is voluntary and greatly appreciated.  While some questions are required to be eligible to participate, you may decline to answer any question.  This survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

For technical assistance please contact our Help Desk at 1-855-411-0039.

 

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, a federal agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act unless that collection of information displays a current valid OMB Control number. The OMB Control Number for this information collection is 2127-0726 (expiration date: 05/31/2020). The average amount of time to complete this survey is 15 minutes. All responses to this collection of information are voluntary. If you have comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden send them to: Information Collection Clearance Officer, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Ave, S.E., Washington, DC, 20590. For technical assistance, please contact us.

 

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

The Child Safety Survey is a national study conducted on behalf of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help improve child transportation safety.

The study includes questions on safe travel with children and safety programs in the community. However, even if you don’t travel with children on a regular basis your responses are valuable.

This survey is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation. NHTSA was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970 and is responsible for reducing deaths, injuries and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes. This is accomplished by setting and enforcing safety performance standards for motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment, and through grants to state and local governments to enable them to conduct effective local highway safety programs.

NHTSA also conducts research on driver behavior and traffic safety, to develop the most efficient and effective means of bringing about safety improvements. To learn more about NHTSA, visit nhtsa.gov.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration engaged Westat to carry out this survey. Westat is a leading survey research organization with over 50 years of experience. To learn more about Westat, visit Westat.com.

Your experiences are unique and important, and your input will help us to better understand child safety in your community. In addition, your household was selected at random to statistically represent thousands of others like yours, so your participation is essential in helping us build a complete picture of child safety nationwide. Even if you don’t travel with children on a regular basis your responses are valuable. The information gathered in the Child Safety Survey will be used to help improve safe travel for children in your community and around the country.

Just follow these 2 steps:

  1. Enter the PIN number at the top of www.ChildSafetySurvey.com that is printed on the invitation letter we sent to your household.
  2. Complete the survey online.

If you need assistance by phone: call 1-855-411-0039 to speak with a survey team member. If you don't know your PIN number or have any questions about the survey, please contact us.

Any household that participates in the survey will receive $5.

Your household was randomly selected from a list of residential addresses. Selecting households in this way ensures that everyone in the nation has the same chance of being chosen, but it also means that we cannot replace your household with another one. All selected households are contacted by mail and asked to participate.

No, unfortunately if you did not receive a letter or postcard in the mail with a PIN Code it means your household was not selected for the survey and you will not be able to participate.

It will take about 15 minutes to complete the survey online.

Yes! The survey is voluntary and you do not have to answer any questions you don't want to. However, it is important to the success of the survey that everyone chosen takes part. We can assure you that your privacy will be respected. View the Privacy Statement.

We are committed to respecting your privacy. The information collected is used for research purposes only. We never sell any personal contact information.

  1. We use a number of safeguards to ensure that survey data are protected from accidental disclosure.
  2. Your name and other identifying information will not be linked to your survey data or shared with anyone outside of the survey research team.
  3. Your information is combined with information from other participants and used for statistical purposes by safety researchers.

For more information about how the data will be protected, review the Privacy Statement.

The survey will include general questions about children in the household and about child safety. The information collected is used for research purposes only and no identifying information will be linked to the survey data. For more information about how the data will be protected, review Privacy Statement.

The data collected from this survey will be statistically summarized to describe child safety at a national and regional level. For example, information provided by all participants will be used to summarize travel with children nationwide. For more information about how the data will be protected, review Privacy Statement.

The survey information will be used to understand child transportation safety nationwide. The data collected in the survey will also be used to help develop better information for caregivers about child safety and build better child safety programs.

NHTSA will use the information from the survey in a report that will be made available to the public on the internet. Your individual information will not be publicly available.