The View From Here: New booster seat law questionable
It’s not that the new child restraint law is such a bad thing. Putting children in booster seats until they’re age 8 or reach 5 feet tall may indeed save lives. It’s just the philosophy behind the new legislation, which became law this week and which will be enforced next July, that we should be questioning.
The changes include: requiring infants less than age 1 or weighing less than 20 pounds to be placed in a rear-facing child seat in the back seat; requiring children between 1 and 3 and who weigh at least 20 pounds to be in a forward facing seat but be positioned in the back seat; requiring children between 4 and 8 and less than 5 feet tall sit in a booster seat; and recommending children between 9 and 13 or at least 5 feet tall to use the seat belt in the back seat. Children 13 to 16 and at least 5 feet tall could sit anywhere in the car with a seat belt.
Perhaps the people in charge of making the new regulations have never wrangled with a child who doesn’t even want to get into a car, much less a booster seat. Or perhaps they’ve never had to explain “why” of seat belts to the strong-willed 5 year old. Or maybe they’ve never heard the choking sound of an infant placed in a rear-facing seat while being the sole driver and not being able to see what’s going on in the back seat.
Perhaps it’s my generation. When and where I grew up, seat belt laws weren’t put into place until I was about 16. Initially, no one followed them.
We all know now that seat belts save lives and we’ve all heard of car wrecks where people died and could have been saved by wearing them. And most of the people who were initially resistant against seat belt use have now have reached an age where they know a little bit more about the world to know accidents really do happen and have learned to value their own lives.
It was only then that they put them on by choice. Today, not one of them gets into a car without buckling up and that is probably because it’s become a practice most people accept.
But it was not easy. In the very beginning, no one wanted to follow the seat belt law mostly because they felt like it was the government telling them what was best for them.
That law caused discussions similar to the debate about whether or not motorcyclists should wear helmets, which rages in many states. Yes, helmets save lives, but it was again the whole philosophy of being forced to do so.
Tennessee’s new child restraint law passed with very little public debate, it seemed to me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen five or six children in a car, none of them wearing seat belts. I’ve even seen toddlers peering over the back of the front seat, able to freely move about near the steering wheel.
Perhaps better enforcement of existing seat belt laws needed to transpire before parents – most of them responsibly following the laws – got new booster seat laws forced upon them. And I haven’t seen a lot of numbers that say children between age 5, for example, and 8 are being killed because they’re not in booster seats. With the old law, a child had to be in a booster seat only if he or she weighed less than 40 pounds.
When the law gets enforced next year, people will obey. Some will do it for safety reasons, but others will do it because there’s a stiffer fine involved for non-compliance.
No one wants to be the one saying the new regulations cannot possibly save lives. Of course they have that potential. But leaders more and more seem to be telling us we are not capable of decisions, therefore, they should be the ones prying into our back seats. I’m an older, seat-bearing wearing mother now, but that is by choice. I’m still not entirely comfortable with the idea that government knows best.
(Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)