Study: Kids safer riding with grandparents

CINCINNATI - After a day out playing, Michael Griffin loaded his 4-year-old daughter Bix into his car for a cool ride home.

"My wife and I are splitting days right now," he says in the parking lot of Cincinnati's Bicentennial Commons. "I have her in the mornings, she has her in the afternoons."

He says the findings of a new study out in the Journal Pediatrics will make him more alert when he hits the road.

"It's scary," he says.

Researchers at Philadelphia's Children's Hospital say that children are 50 percent more likely to be injured riding with their parents than their grandparents.

"I need to get her down to South Carolina to drive with her grandparents," Griffin jokes.

Kidding aside, Griffin says the report makes sense.

"I'm prone to get distracted just because I'm accustomed to having her in there all the time," he says. "Whereas I imagine my parents have seen her much less often, they're thinking every second, 'must keep her safe.'"

Grandparent Mary Friemoth says it's no contest who's safer. "I am... I have boys and they're a little speedy."

Even kids like Vanessa Morrow think the findings are right on.

"My dad…he's not a bad driver," she says. "But he does get really close to the cars sometimes."

The advantage, which surprised some researchers, seems to be in spite of grandparents not strapping the kids in as carefully, and the fact that older drivers are more likely to get into accidents.

Grandparent Ona Bowman says the key to this dichotomy boils down to two words: "precious cargo."

Authors of the study agree, suggesting when grandma is behind the wheel, she's paying extra attention to the road.

Researchers collected the data from 2003-2007 crash reports from State Farm Insurance.