Auto Helmets?

Feel free to chime in if this seems like a really stupid idea to you: a safety helmet for children to wear inside a car. The reason for this is that automotive accidents are the number one killer of young children and head trauma is prominent among these accidents.

But they're inside the car for God's sake. My question is: What is the chance that these kids were wearing seatbelts or other restraints? If they weren't, why would they wear a helmet?

My guess is that they weren't wearing belts or that the kids are so small that seatbelts wouldn't restrain them properly. I remember when I was a kid, I had horrible trouble with shoulder belts. They went straight across my neck. Even at four, Jeff the Baptist was smart enough to know that a crushed trachea is bad so I figured out a way to buckle up across my lap and stick the shoulder belt behind my back. As you get older, I can assure you that the teenagers who are dying in car accidents aren't buckled up. I lost 4 kids my junior year in high school for just that reason.

UPDATE: Joan has a list up of many of the stupid and dangerous things she did as a kid often while being supervised by grown-ups. Her readers are adding more as I write.