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A study of injury patterns of older children (aged 6-12 years) indicates that they may deserve more attention from automotive safety researchers. Although older children represent 43.1% of child occupants involved in accidents taken from the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) database, they receive 55.4% of the injuries suffered by children. A lower restraint usage rate (56.2% compared to 63.4% for younger children) partly accounts for this disproportionate amount of injury. However, when restrained, fewer older children remain uninjured compared to younger children (62.8% vs. 70.8%). The number of older children receiving injuries decreases with restraint use (63.6% injured for unrestrained vs. 37.5% injured for restrained). When comparing injuries to restrained and unrestrained older children, the injuries are generally the same severities, but restraints lead to higher proportions of pelvis/abdomen injuries while reducing the occurrence of whole body injuries.