The article presents results of experimental investigation of the dynamic loads that act on a child carried in a safety seat fixed on the rear seat of a passenger car during a frontal impact of the car against an obstacle. The analysis was done with using the test results published on the Internet by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), covering 12 crash tests where the test car moving with a speed of about 56 km/h frontally hit a rigid flat barrier. The attention was focused on the loads on test dummies representing children aged 3 and 10 years. For all the cars tested, the risk of serious injury (AIS 3) for the child aged 3 years was higher by 5-27 % than that for the ten-year-old one in the test conditions under consideration. It has been found that for the younger child, the greatest danger may arise when the child’s head hits its back on the seat backrest in the final phase of the vehicle collision; in contrast, the older child is chiefly exposed to excessive thoracic deflection. The assessment of loads on the test dummies was preceded by an analysis of data collected from the road accidents that occurred in Poland and in the European Union. It has been ascertained that the risk of child’s death in a road accident in Poland is comparable for both the age groups under analysis (0-6 years and 7-14 years). However, it is alarming that the value of the rate of hazard to children in Poland is almost twice as high as the EU average.