Advocates supports enactment of House Bill (HB) 32 to establish protections for child passengers. However, we recommend an amendment to improve the bill and enhance the safety of child passengers.
HB 32 will improve the child passenger safety law by requiring children to be restrained in a rear-facing safety seat until at least age two and children who outgrow a rear-facing safety seat to be secured in a forward-facing child restraint system until at least five years old or 65 pounds. Advocates supports these upgrades which are consistent with best practices identified by the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP) and others.
We suggest improving the bill’s booster seat provision. The AAP identifies the best practice for transitioning out of a booster seat and into a seat belt is “typically when they have reached 4 ft 9 inches in height and are between 8 and 12 y. of age.”6 This recommendation is supported by growth charts for the average development of children which find that more than 95 percent of boys and girls are less than 4 feet 9 inches in height at age nine.7 Therefore, in the vast majority of cases, the transition from a booster seat to seat belts should occur beyond age eight and accordingly, we support an amendment to require booster seats for children until they are at least eight years old and 4 ft 9 inches.
Read the full letter here.