Are Child Restraint Laws Really Protecting our Children?
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In the past week I’ve witnessed multiple violations to what I thought was standard safety for young children in vehicles. I was wrong. I’ve seen the following incidents within days of each other and I’m about ready to pull out my hair in frustration.
1. Three year old girl from my ECFE class riding in a vehicle with only a seatbelt for restraint. I’ve seen it multiple times throughout the day in different vehicles. (Her family also picks up an older sibling when I’m picking up my son from Pre-K.) She is restrained with a seat and shoulder belt in the back seat.
2. Four or five year old boy from my son’s Pre-K class riding in the front seat with only a seat belt with shoulder belt for restraint. Little brother sitting in back in a car seat but nobody else riding in the vehicle. (Therefore no reason for him to have to sit in front.)
3. A young boy and girl around the ages of 7 and 9 riding in the backseat of a car with no seat belts. This vehicle stopped right next to me at a red light at a busy intersection and they were moving all over the back seat, just hanging out and not unrestrained for any particular reason I could see.
And as I see this happening my eyes bug out and I have to restrain myself from wanting to say something. Not because I’m a confrontational person and not because I think I’m the perfect parent. I’ve made my own share of parenting mistakes but it has never even crossed my mind to place my small children in a vehicle without the proper restraint for their age. It seems like a no brainer to me.
I want to ask if they are not properly restrained because they don’t know the current laws or because they don’t care? I’m sure they love their children. Why wouldn’t they say keeping them safe is worth the inconvenience of using a seat or listening to whining about wearing a belt or begging to sit in the front seat?
Child Restraint Laws
I decided to do a little research about the current Child Restraint Laws. In virtually all states, with the exception of Florida, it is against the law to have a child under the age of four not in a car seat and not in a booster seat (or some states car seat) until the age of 8. Most of these guidelines also include height and weight requirements. It is also suggested that children should sit in the back seat until the age of 12. Most states have laws that children or even all citizens must wear seat belts at all times, with a few exceptions.
In my home state of Minnesota I found out the Child Passenger Restraint Law, MN Stat 169.685 included the following:
- Children under age 8 and shorter than 4 feet 9 inches tall must be secured in a safety seat or booster seat that meets federal safety standards.
- Children cannot ride in a seat belt alone until they are age 8 or 4 feet 9 inches tall — whichever comes first.
- Infants (under 20 pounds and one year of age) must be in a rear-facing safety seat.
- Law applies to all motor vehicles originally equipped with factory-installed seat belts.
- Law applies to all seating positions and driver is responsible.
- Petty misdemeanor fine for violation is $50 (may be waived if violator shows proof of obtaining a safety seat within 14 days).
- Applies to both residents and non-residents of Minnesota and suspected non-use is a valid basis to stop a motor vehicle.
After reading this, I can’t help but wonder if the child restraint laws are really protecting our children.
If the idea of keeping a child safe isn’t enough to deter some people from breaking the law, will a $50 petty misdemeanor fine with an option to get it waived really keep them from doing it again? That is a pretty light punishment for what I would consider child endangerment.
I know, mind boggling. But then I think back to when I grew up, we had no seat belts in most of our cars in the back seat, and nobody used a car seat. I know it isn’t an excuse, I’d love to see the numbers comparing the number of highway deaths ‘then’ compared to now.
I figured someone might say that. Only because it is something that my MIL has mentioned many times. I had it in my post originally but thought it was getting too long. 🙂
There are a lot of things we used to do that we didn’t think was a big deal. (Smoking in front of children for example) That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous or that we should ignore the laws because other people turned out ok with the old laws.
MY BIL is a cop in San Antonio and has seen some HORRIFC accidents involving children unrestrained in the back of vehicles. If these laws only save a one child each year I think that child is worth it. (I’m sure they save a lot more)
I think it would be very hard to compare because I have no doubt that children are on the road a lot more now than they were back then. Think of all the daycare/pre-school drop offs, school activities, etc now compared to then. Their risk of being in an accident is certainly increased.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012101268.html
Thanks for your comment!
I think I should just be quiet sometimes. I don’t advocate parents NOT using seatbelts and car seats. I’m just curious about it, that’s all. I am also horrified when I see kids bouncing around in the cars, if they were in an accident they would bounce around like a rubber ball. Striking and perhaps killing others in the vehicle and definitely injuring themselves.
My folks smoked like trains when we were on trips, in the winter it was miserable being locked up in cars. Miraculously we don’t have asthma or breathing issues. they had 8 kids locked up in there with them most of the time. Astonishing, isn’t it? Thanks for giving us food for thought today.
Oh no Cindy! You brought up an interesting point. I was simply saying it would be hard to look at the numbers alone because of the increased risk and more children on the road. It is so hard to convey this properly in written form, but I want you to know that I appreciate your comments!
Some of the things I said in the comment weren’t directed at you, just allowed me the opportunity to explain where I was coming from in more detail and I’m sorry I did it that way now.
Please don’t be quiet! Opens things up for even more discussion. 🙂
Oh, good. I agree, written communication is sometimes HARD. Being a nurse I would never advocate blatant child endangerment.
I am relatively certain parents not using carseats because parents can’t afford car seats, most hospitals give them away when the babies are dismissed from the hospital. I know our local thrift store refuses to sell hand me down car seats, they give them away to parents, knowing that they are serving the community and making our kids safe. As long as they are clean and have a high safety rating.
Not only that but just the average number of miles driven per year has increased dramatically… more time on the road, more opportunity for accidents. Not to mention the exponential growth of the number of cars on the road….
Although, I still think of my childhood and the time my dad drove his jeep over a speed bump, and I literally flew out of the back cargo area (we called it the back-back) through the open window and hit the pavement. I can laugh about it now, but at the time… ouch.
I was always pretty safety-conscious (OK, paranoid).. I had the car seat checked by the local police dept, and I never carried groceries and stuff in the car because I read about how all that stuff becomes projectiles in an accident, and I freaked out. I didn’t want my son getting a concussion from a can of corn. LOL
What drives me crazy is the amount of seats I see that aren’t properly installed or the children aren’t properly strapped in. I see parents driving around in fancy cars with the $$$ carseats that aren’t installed properly. Or their child riding w/ twisted, loose straps. The carseats can only do their jobs if they’re used right!
And yes, while parents do love their children more than words, the inconvenience does factor in. My very own friend, who knows what a car safety stickler I am, couldn’t wait to get her son out of the convertible seat and into his booster. The DAY he turned age, she switched his seat. Never mind the fact that he’s a peanut and would clearly be safer riding in the 5pt harness.
I think that there needs to be more education available for parents regarding carseat safety. Most people I’ve talked to didn’t even know you can have your carseat inspected for proper installation. The inspections provided at places like BRU don’t happen frequent enough.
Seriously, I could go on and on…I drive my family nuts with my carseat safety obsession.
It’s a huge deal to me, and I don’t think nearly enough is done to EDUCATE people on the importance of 1. child restraint laws 2. properly installing seats. I do home health for a living, so I am out on the road all day long and see some really shocking things in the lines of transporting children. Yesterday I saw a carseat in the middle seat that was tilted really far to the left (with a child in it) so that there was NO way this seat was installed anywhere near correct. I have seen a Graco Snugride in the FRONT seat of a Corolla. And of course I’ve seen the occasional (but far too many) children completely unrestrained.
I think what it comes down to is lack of education. People don’t know how to properly install seats, how long children should be in different types of seats, and the benefits of ERF. They don’t know what could happen in a crash scenario if not restrained properly. I think we need to focus more on education. But how? Even our pedi wasn’t up to date on the benefits of ERF, so how could I expect her to educate me on why we need to keep kids in car seats/boosters to a certain age?
I think every parent wants to protect their precious cargo, but sometimes they just don’t think and that is the dangerous part. It is the old “it will never happen to me thing” When my child was young his car seat was like a box that hooked over the seat back. If a accident were to happen he would have flown out of the vehicle. Now my grandchildren have wonderful seats that will protect them and I urge each and every parent to use this life saving devices, after all it only takes a minute to buckle up. Also please learn how to properly install these seats, in our community the fire dept and sherriff’s dept teamed up with a buckle up program, They would inspect to make sure car seats were installed properly, and if the car seat was old, had been in a accident or the child had outgrown it, they would replace it for free, There were lots of Buckle Up Events in the area and it was all from a grant that the Sherriff’s dept had gotten.
My pet peeve is not the car seat issue, but the idiots who let their children or even their friends ride in the back of a pick up truck, what are they thinking. There are no seats, no seatbelts, nothing to hold on to. In the case of a accident that passenger would find himself on the side if the road and it would not be pretty.
It drives me crazy too when kids are not restrained. I once saw a mother in the back seat of a car holding a newborn. The baby was probably crying and she was holding it to soothe it but if that happens the driver should pull over and calm the child down!
At my sons preschool there are parents who unbuckle their kids before they get to the front of the school and the kids roam around before the car is stopped, I don’t unbuckle my son until i put the car in park!
Every province in Canada has it’s own laws. I’m in Alberta and all I can find is “A child under six years whose weight does not exceed 18 kg (40 lb.) must be properly secured in a child safety seat.” And that is all that is said about it. Some provinces have laws about older children being in a booster seat but ours does not. BUT I do know of people who have gone through a “car seat check stop” (kind of like a drinking and driving check stop) and if they did not have their car seat installed properly or their child was not in it tight enough or whatever, I THINK they were fined $200 and taught the proper way of doing things.
There was a picture of an accident on TV when my son was a baby showing how a car seat saved the baby from death. There was a beam from a parking lot that hit the crook in the carseat right above the baby’s hips. The carseat didn’t give way and allow the beam to fall on the baby, surely crushing it to death. That car seat was the exact same brand we had for our son. I felt confident that it was one of the best on the market and so glad I had it………both of my children lived in carseats until the law said they didn’t need them anymore. I was very apprehensive when we finally got rid of them, you just never know what will happen when you are at the mercy of other drivers on our highways.
The law here is that all children that are under the age of 5 years and are under the weight of 50 lbs, must be restrained. Although, they are trying to change it to 8 years of age, and 80lbs.
I don’t think it is the laws that are the problem. Government can increase the fines etc, but the bottom line is that you can’t fix stupid or lazy and if parents don’t care enough to do it themselves, changing the law isn’t going to help. Parents need to take responsibility for their own actions. I seriously doubt that most offenders are really that unaware of their offenses, they are just too lazy to take the time to do it properly. In having my babies, carseat laws were heavily stressed in all birthing classes and handouts received from the hospitals.
This is an issue!!! I confronted people who own a Chineese restaraunt we used to go to all the time they would bundle their newborn baby in like 6+ layers super thick and puffy things and put the car seat shoulder straps over the baby’s belly chest clip over the waist area and clip the crotch so kinda like a baby swing. Their logic was that babies are always cold and that the baby screams if they put the straps any other way so too bad if we had a different idea, we tried to explain it wasn’t just a different idea that w/ the extra layers the baby literally didn’t fit in the seat so it was obvious to my why she would scream if they tried to pack her+the extra fluff under the shoulder straps but they wouldn’t listen saying that the car seat would keep her safe and I was “silly”!
Think beyond cars tho…….public transportation you can pack a newborn seat on the bus pretty easily and mine has an easy seatbelt spot but how do I walk to the bus and lug 2 25LB forward facing car seats AND keep a 1 1/2 and 3 year old holding my hands????? Also if I did manage to get the seats there they don’t want them left on the bus for my return trip I did ask so I would have to remove them at my stop and lug them however many blocks to the dr app and back to the stop and then back home. The car seats in cars being properly installed and used is crucial but we need to stop living in boxes and think about other transportation means cruise liners and airplanes allow them but its a pain to lug them onboard so what to do about families that need busses and subways???
Oh yeah and my neighbor witnessed a bad car wreck about2 yeas ago she saw the baby in the carseat sliding right side up in the seat down the street unharmed and the car wasn’t even recognizable looked like a pile of scraps and pieces~ so yeah put the kiddos in their seats and do it right 🙂
@ Cindy, the deaths due to car accidents peaked in the mid to late 60’s.
If people would see pictures of accidents where seatbelts/car seats were used and accidents where they were not used, I think most people would opt for seat belts and car seats. We have booster seats foe our youngest grandchild and for friends kids when they ride with us.
I think that people don’t stop and think that they are risking their childs LIFE when they do those things. There’s no way that thought crosses their mind, because if it did I’m sure they would make better choices.
I know so many people who put their kid in a backless booster the day they hit 30lbs, and so many other people who leave their kid in a 5 point but then the straps are extremely lose and the chest pieces are at the kids belly button.
What irks me is people on tv even! I watch TLC a lot and the duggars (19 kids and counting) have several kids in car seats and their straps are SUPER lose I mean, you could literally put a stuffed animal or doll between the kid and their straps. The other tlc show ‘table for 12’ which is a sextuplets show, I recently watched a few of their episodes and their kids were 5 and still in 5 point harnesses which is cool but they let the kids pick a different carseat during each car trip, and of course a few of the kids are bigger than the others, so the straps arent suited for them and are often sagging away from their bodies, and their dad is a COP! Frustrates me that they don’t think about it even when they are opening their lives to the entire world.
I agree with a prior comment – stricter laws won’t necessarily mean compliance. Some people are lazy, and that’s just sad, especially when it comes to a child’s saftey.
That said, I do recall driving 20+ hours from Chicago to Florida when I was 12 with the middle seat removed in the mini van and my 4 year old sister sprawled out next to me on a sleeping bag, reading 🙂
When I was a bank teller I had a car come up with 7 kids from about 3 months to 10 crammed in the back seat of a little car with the oldest HOLDING the baby. Mind you they are made for 3. Not a single car seat. I took their license number, make & model, and name on check and called the police and told them which direction they went when they left the bank.
Can you believe I was written up for violating customer rights? WTF!! I told them I’d do it again in a heart beat and I regretted letting her drive away.
I see so many children in vehicles who are not in a car seat or secure with a seatbelt. It drives me insane and so many times I want to roll my window down and scream at the driver.
I am a huge supporter of proper carseat use. It upsets me when I see kids not properly restrained. I have a 7 year old (tiny), 5 year old, & 2.5 year old. All of them are in a 5 point harness & my 2.5 year old was only turned forward facing a couple of months ago. People question me often as to why & I’m not scared to tell them. A car accident can happen so quickly & I am doing everything in my power to keep them safe.
I know you don’t want to say anything to any of the violations that you saw but you may want to just ask the person from your son’s preK class that has the 4 or 5 year old in the front seat if they have a passenger side air bag. Children and even small adults can be killed by a deployed airbag.