Starting this year, California took a big step forward with its new booster seat requirement: It became one of only a handful of states that require kids to sit in booster seats until age 8 or until they reach a height of 4 feet 9 inches.
Has this new law given Californians greater clarity on car seat safety? Not exactly. At least three major news outlets reported the change incorrectly (reporting that the new law included 8-year-olds). Many parents whose 6- and 7-year-olds had already legally "graduated" from booster seats are balking about putting their kids back into the chair (even with the new threat of fines up to $475). And still more parents haven't heard of the new law, and couldn't tell you what the old one was anyway.
Welcome to yet another chapter in the murky, murky world of booster seats.
When you have a new baby, it's a given that he or she will ride home from the hospital in a rear-facing infant car seat. Beyond that, the rules get a little fuzzier. At some point your little one will graduate to a rear-facing seat with a five-point harness, and then later you'll turn the seat around so that it is facing forward. Eventually your child will switch to a booster seat (a cushion, sometimes with armrests and a backrest, that is restrained by the car's seatbelt), and later, just the seatbelt alone. When to change at each point is subject to all sorts of vagaries -- the size and weight ratings on your car seats, the weight and height of your child, and the laws that seem to vary wildly from state to state.
You can get a sense of the mishmash of rules on the subject when you look at a chart comparing state child safety seat laws. Consider this: Georgia has a requirement for children to be in some sort of seat restraint until age 8. Florida, on the other hand, has no booster seat law, and only requires children to be in some sort of restraint until age 4. So you have to be twice as old in Georgia before you can go without a child seat as you can in Florida.
But the law in Florida raises an interesting point -- Is a booster seat really necessary after the toddler stage? Can't a kid just ride with a regular seatbelt? Experts say that in many cases with younger children, a regular seatbelt does not fit properly. Some even say that kids need to be age 10 to 12 before a seat belt fits the right way.
Here's why: If the lap portion of the belt rides across a child's tummy (instead of resting on his or her upper thighs), this could cause internal damage in an accident. The shoulder belt also needs to cross the center of the child's chest, not cut across his or her neck. A booster seat literally gives a kid a "boost" so that the seatbelt sits in the right place. Although the backrest is optional, it helps stabilize your child's head and neck if he or she is not tall enough to reach the headrest.
(photos via carseat.org)
SafetyBeltSafe USA, a child car seat safety organization, offers the following 5-point checklist to assess if your child needs to ride in a booster seat:
1. Does the child sit all the way back against the seat of the car?
2. Do the child's knees bend comfortably at the edge of the seat of the car?
3. Does the belt cross the shoulder between the neck and arm?
4. Is the lap belt as low as possible, touching the thighs?
5. Can the child stay seated like this for the whole trip?
Even if your child meets the age requirement to ride without one, many experts recommend keeping the booster seat in place. SafetyBeltSafe USA reports that a booster seat can reduce injuries about 45 percent for children who do not fit into a regular seatbelt.
But ultimately, the decision as to whether a kid rides in a booster seat rests with the person driving the car. Some parents are super safety-conscious and will keep their children strapped in as long as possible; others are tired of dealing with car seats altogether. Using one micro-sample from our Los Angeles neighborhood, we know of at least one family that stopped using booster seats at age six, and at least two families whose 7-year-olds still ride in a seat with a five-point harness.
Are kids safer in a booster seat? Yes. Will new laws help more kids use booster seats for a longer time? Maybe, but it will take more than the current mishmash of confusing and inaccurate information. It will require a concerted and convincing campaign of the genuine safety benefits to help convince parents and kids that a booster seat can be a lifesaver.
Jeanne Ponessa Fratello writes about kids' nutrition and parenting at The Jolly Tomato.
Follow Jeanne Ponessa Fratello on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jollytomato
The worse that ever happened was kids falling while climbing trees, just cuts and bruises resulting. I feel sorry, in a way, for kids these days. I know we like to protect kids, but they miss SO much by being under parental control and observation 24/7. I suppose booster seats are fine, by at what age should they stop? My Mom would give us kids rides to a swimming pool, four kids in a car. Now, she would need four booster seats. She would also leave us at the pool, tell us to listen to the lifeguard, and pick us up in a few hours. CPS would be on her big time now for that.
Most parents want to be their kid's buddy and are afraid discipline will make their child not like them, or they're too wrapped up in the self-centered pursuit of their own bliss to let the task of raising their children inconvenience them.
Between the government and the insurance companies, the day isn't far off before kids will have to sit in booster seats until they are 16 or 160lbs AND wear helmets, knee pads and kidney belts. Ugh!
Better safe than sorry as far as kids are concerned in the car. Her mother let her ride in a seatbelt shoulder harness with out the booster seat or car seat since she was 5.
If one of only a handful means one of over 30 states that already have booster laws equal or greater to CA. See the yellow and orange states in this map of booster/restraint laws for our country.
http://www.iihs.org/laws/mapchildrestraintagerequirements.aspx
To me this shows that the majority of states in our country understand that boosters are needed for CHILDREN to fit properly in ADULT seat belts. And it is really not confusing at all - if different states "seem" to have different rules, follow NHTSA guidelines - These guidelines match better to the Laws of Physics that don't change at state lines.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nti/pdf/NHTSAcarseatrecommendations.pdf