Transportation kills 8,000 U.S minors/yr.

ATLANTA, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- About 8,000 U.S. children and teens die annually because they were a motor vehicle occupant, pedestrian or pedal cyclist, government health officials said.

A report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that an estimated 55 million children and teens from birth to age 19 were treated in emergency departments for unintentional injuries from 2001 to 2006.

The report also said from 2000 to 2005, unintentional injuries resulted in 73,052 deaths among children and teens. Falls caused most non-fatal injuries -- about 2.8 million each year-- while most deaths were transportation-related.

An estimated 9.2 million children visited emergency departments for unintentional injuries during that period. Falls were associated with more than half of the nonfatal injuries involving children less than age 1, while transportation-related injuries and deaths were highest among children 15 to 19 years of age. Overall, males were almost twice as likely to die as a result of unintentional injuries than females.

The highest fatality rates were among occupants of motor vehicles, while drowning was the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages 1 to 4. For those ages 5 to 19, most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle crash, the report said.

The report is at: www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm.