New Car Seat Policy Keeps Kids in Booster Seats Much Longer

I am well aware of what SuperFreakEconomics Says about carseats and if you read you will see they say that the reason that carseats fail most of the time is because they are not properly installed. Properly installed carseats are safe, improperly installed carseats are not.

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The AAP recommendations also note that children should ride in the rear of the vehicle until they are 13 years old.

2 years later they get a permit and are driving this is nuts

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I think this has to become a parent preference. Some parents want safety for their kids, some don't care. Some go overboard, some don't. For me personally, I have a 15,10, and 3yr old children. My 10yr old and 3yr old have long legs. I could never see them rear facing until they were 2. Their legs would have been to their chest, not really sure if that would have been safe either. Both of them were not the weight to face forward, but the length they exceded it, so I had to face forward. But I always made sure the seat was properly installed and belts and harnesess were used. My 10 year old has not been a booster seat since he was 8 years old. Plus even if I had one for him now, he would not use it. He is taller then me. Hard to explain why he has to be in a booster when I am shorter then him. My front seat rule is you have to be over 13 to ride in the front. That video doesn't show the seat installed correctly. So I really think this should come down to the parents deciding what they want for thier children and how safe do they want them to be, not the government telling us what to do.

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worry about the economy dumbasses and stay out of peoples business,next they will be telling you what time you can take a piss in the morning

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I can fully appreciate the recommendation for young children, but boosters for kids over 7 or 8. This is just silly and 13 is outlandish. Unfortunately states will take these recommendations, pass laws and poke its nose into everyones personal business.

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As a 10 year + Car Seat Technician and Instructor all I can say is yeah! The American Academy of Pediatrics has done years of research to beack these reccomendations. I have seen the consequences of both properly using and not using a car seat and beleive me the later is brutal. to reply in a condensed version to some of the comments here:
1. Legs/orthopedic injuries heal alot easier than brain/spinal cord injuries. Don't worry about the legs getting injured rear facing.
2. The real judge of a child needing a booster seat is fit: back to back of vehicle seat, knees bent @ 90degree angle at front of vehicle seat, shoulder belt across shoulder/center of chest. Proper fit can vary by car and seating positionin car (ie captain's chairs are harder for a child to fit properly than a smaller third row).
3. In the past 20 years acciddental death rates of children have fallen by @30%! this is attributed to car seat and helmet laws/use.
4. It's would be interesting to see how those disagreeing here would react if their child were killed or permanently injured due to improper restraint in a car crash. Would they say "It's my fault, I chose not to properly restrain my child." I think not. This is a case where an agency with children's best interest at heart are trying to give us valuable information that came from years of research. This is not teh government enforcing anything. These are the American Academy of Pediatrics current reccimendations.
5. Europe, Canada, and Australia have had stricter child passenger safety laws than the United States for YEARS! We are just starting to catch up.

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We are turning our children into a bunch of followers not leaders. Maybe the drivers need to talk to the children rather than strapping them in the back seat and giving the a TV screen to watch and telling them not to interrupt them while they are driving and talking/texting on the cell. Children will be hurt even if they are facing backward, if they are in an accident. Maybe the kids should be left at home with the parent rather than being on the road in the first place.

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These recomendations are way overreaching. Good luck to the poor parent of an 18 month old who tries to keep them in a rear facing baby seat, or a 9 year old in a booster seat. It's time to take the bubble wrap off the this recent generation of kids. If Mom & Dad would turn of the cell phone & take a drivers ed class, then (just like me during not one but three cross country moving trips in the late '70- early '80, between the ages of 6 & 10, with no booster seats, a lap belt only, & seating up front on the third trip) nothing will happen to them.
I at 39 yr old I am a healthy male, because I was allowed to get ill, bumps, bruises, & scratches. Stop coddling you children.

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let parents make there own decisions not be told they have to do it

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KMS...I think you should keep your children out of vehicles entirely. It is just too dangerous! What other resttictions and conditions have you enacted throughout their lives in order to "keep them safe".
Everyone has their own comfort zone regarding safety and that is fine. The problem is the govt (based on recommedations from groups such as the above mentioned one) starts making safety the RULE for us all.
No one should be careless, but crawling under your bed and hiding is too much for me.
I choose to live a little...no a lot, and I let my kids do the same. No little bike helmets and knee pads for bikes and skateboards. No fricken booster seats until they are 4'9" crap.
Until recently, in my state, you could have all your kids in the back seat with NO SEAT BELT. Only seat belt required for front seat.
Now I am almost certain they just changed it to under 16 has to be buckled no matter where in car.
The original reason the back seat wasn't required was for families that had many kids. There sould not be enough seat belts in teh rear bench seat to buckle alll up.
Now I guess with smaller familes common the state said too bad. We have to make you safe you know.
BAAH HUMMBUGG!!

I don't buy into it. I will decide how to keep myself and my family safe. And if I am too stupid to keep my children safe...too bad government. You will have ot deal with no being able to have eveything you want....BUT WAIT...they couldn't accept that so they TRAMPLED our rights...YES even right to be stupid and self destructive, into the GROUND and all the sheeple and safety freaks fully supported it.

I am sad to see what this country and world has become. Glad I am not going to live forever cause living with these people and their imposed will SUCKS!

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I have a better idea....Pay attention to what you are doing...Driving....But, No....It is mandated that the kids are put in the back seat because the Safety Air-bag will Kill them....Now we have Mom and Dad driving down the road looking backwards to the back seat to deal with the kid...Is that Safe??? And don't forget the Mom or Dad that forgets the kid in the back seat that dies of heat stroke. I miss America and freedom of choice....

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I remember my carseat from 61 years ago... It had a steering wheel, a horn and a stickshift. It was hung over the back of the front bench seat with two lat hooks, similar to what is used to hang flowerboxes on fences today. It faced forward. If my nose was running my mother could easily lean over an wipe it at a red-light because there was no seat belt to restrain her. I had 3 siblings and more than 40 cousins, none of whom had anything more substantial than that carseat to protect them. We also didn't have a host of activist politicians telling what was good for us, what we should eat, ordering us to wear helmets on our tricycles, threatening to jail our mothers if they left us in the care of an older sibling while they went to the store for a quart of milk or deciding whether it was constitutional to say the pledge to the flag or a morning prayer in school.
HOW DID WE EVER SURVIVE THAT WAY???

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see here is the thing,society is getting hammered by all these changes and in the first place the changes always cost more money which if your financialy okay no big deal

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Let's put that 16 year old in a backward seat But all kidding aside,I do agree about children being in the back seat. I lived in Europe for years, and and in Germany it is mandatory that children under 12 rude in the back seat. Howeverm, my childrens' legs were wayyyyyyyy too long for a rear facing seat at age 1 1/2. Where are those long legs supposed to go? And a thirteen year old in a booster seat? Oh come on people, let's use common sense. By age thirteen, msot girls and boys are adult sized. This is getting too ridiculous. Just use some commons sense. Is that too much to ask?

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if they are so darn worried about kids saftey, why do schoolbusses not have seatbelts or carseats facing in any direction? just another way they think they can rape the public by way of tickets

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