Aside from New Hampshire, every State in the union (and Washington D.C.) has a seat belt law for front-seat occupants. But the laws for rear-seat occupants vary wildly between States. In Iowa, for example, there are no laws against riding beltless in the rear seats. But places like Maine, New York, and Oregon require all occupants to be wearing seat belts, no matter where they are in the car.
Things get more complicated once age comes into the equation. In Michigan, for example, you don’t have to wear a seat belt in the rear … so long as you’re 16 years old or older. If you’re under 16, you have to wear a seat belt, no matter where you’re sitting. Many states have similar age-based laws.
Then there are child seat and booster seat laws. Most States have laws that require children under 8 years old or under 4’9″ to use booster seats. California is one such State. But thanks to a new law signed by the Governor back in October, children as old as 16 might soon need to use booster seats if they can’t satisfy the law’s new criteria.
No Set Numbers, Just Smart Parameters
Bill AB 435, which was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom and set to take effect on January 1, 2027, was put in place to better ensure that children between eight years old and 16 years old are being afforded the same protections as their younger counterparts. Lawmakers likely discovered that the body types for some children in that age range were still unsuitable for adult passenger restraints.
Instead of increasing the height cutoff requirements, the state has identified five specific parameters that must be met for a child to ride in a vehicle without any additional equipment. And they all seem pretty sensible:
- The child can sit all the way back against the seat
- The child’s knees bend over the edge of the seat
- The shoulder belt sits snugly across the center of the child’s chest and shoulder, not at the child’s neck
- The lap belt is as low as possible and is touching the child’s thighs (not the stomach)
- The child can stay seated in this position for the entirety of the trip
If the child doesn’t meet all five of these criteria, they’ll have to use a booster seat. The driver of a vehicle caught with a child riding in the car and not meeting the criteria could face a fine of up to $490.
Basically, the State just wants to make sure your kid is big enough to sit in a full-size car seat properly. Seat belts, used improperly (like resting on the neck or stomach), can have catastrophic effects in a crash. By putting these common-sense rules in place, both parents and police can quickly and reliably determine whether or not a child actually needs a booster seat, regardless of their age or height.
Won’t You Think Of The Children?
While I’m all for making sure kids are as safe as possible while riding in a vehicle, I feel a little bit bad for kids who might now need to start using booster seats, even as teenagers.
I remember, as a kid, finally being able to ride in a car for the first time without having to get into a booster seat. It might sound like a small thing, but it felt like a rite of passage and part of growing up. Even though I was just nine years old, I felt like an adult. Having to go from recently graduated to normal seating back to a booster seat would be pretty upsetting, to me, at least.
Also, having to ride in a booster seat as a 16-year-old, a.k.a. a sophomore in high school, seems like it’d be the most embarrassing thing on the planet. I wouldn’t put it past any of my high school friends to make fun of me endlessly if they saw me hop up into a booster seat in the back seat of my parents’ car after school. Children are cruel. But at the end of the day, I’d rather my kid be bullied and safely secured in the car.
Top graphic images: Stock.Adobe.com
I’ve resided in CA for the past 45 years. My favorite law is Proposition 65. /s
It is a label saying something in or on the product may cause cancer. Basically, every product and even many packaged foods have this warning. It gets on buildings, too. There is no requirement to identify the hazardous component(s).
By now, every resident of CA has learned to ignore the label. As a result, it is a lot cheaper for a producer to just add the label rather than go through some elaborate testing or search whatever database may exist.
In my last 6 working years I was the health and safety officer for my company along with my normal job. I was very conscientious and passed all my inspections. I got an exemption from collecting rainwater at all our parking lot drains every time it rained because our effluent was primarily argon, oxygen, and nitrogen. I bet the company across the street never sampled their effluent. They dumped selenium vapor into the air.
One of my favorite activities is visiting Nevada and telling people those things can’t give me cancer anymore.
Gawd, my child seat belt was dad’s arm.
In all honesty, our now 20yr old daughter was fully belted and car seated through her childhood. It was a PITA at times. This seems over the top.
What about 15 year old’s who don’t meet all the requirements but are taking drivers training. Do they have to have a booster seat on the drivers seat or will it be illegal until they turn 16?
I asked ChatGPT the same and it does not apply to the driver. Which seems to undercut the entire logic of the law that seatbelt safety concerns outweigh any other consideration here.
I was under the impression this new law is specifically about the back seat, which the driver could never be in.
I imagine one of the factors might be that back seats typically aren’t particularly adjustable when it comes to height, relative to seatbelt mounting points anyway. Not all front seats are either, but it seems that most modern cars can adjust both the driver’s seat height and legroom, and also the seatbelt shoulder-mount height.
I am again just going off AI, but it claimed that it also applies to the front passenger seat.
That law is kinda fucking stupid. My 08 Nissan has terrible belts on the backseat, the shoulder belt hits the neck of pretty much anyone under 5’9”, regardless of age. Why not make a law requiring rear seatbelts to not suck and be better at protecting shorter people?
I’m not asking to make a one size fits all, that’s pretty much impossible, and car seats and boosters will still be needed for lots of sizes, but I don’t know, maybe make some better ergonomics that actually protect shorter people?
It doesn’t help people that already have a car, but you’re right, there should be a push going forward. Back seat passengers are already a lot safer in a crash so they don’t get a lot of attention, but I’m sure there are parents out there that would care how well the vehicle they are shopping for protects their 12 year old.
That’s exactly what the revised IIHS moderate overlap test does – it puts a 12-year-old-sized dummy in the backseat to test the seatbelt system. That’s why you see new cars rated “poor” despite having excellent protection for the driver – the rear seatbelts in many of them are not up to snuff.
I believe in Iowa, you can ride beltless in the back seat if you are age 18 or higher. Riders under 18 must be restrained.
That’s probably the case in most states? NY very recently changed the rule (last year maybe) to expand it to any occupant regardless of age. Pretty sure it’s completely unenforced though.
I want those cars from Demolition Man that fill with foam in an accident. Maybe that’s next in CA… I’ll pass on the three seashells, however…
People of San Marcos! From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now… 16 years old!
Dictator Esposito…….
“Bananas”
1971
I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.
I rode in a “car seat” until 2nd or 3rd grade. (I think it would be considered a booster seat today, based on its construction…I also just learned from my mom that it was never replaced after the wreck that totaled the Cutlass.) Based on weight/height requirements, I should have been riding in the thing well into 6th grade, but it was impossible for me to get out of/into the seat on my own in the school dropoff/pickup line, so it had to go. My parents were also very aware of the social stigma of riding in a booster seat.
I have a developmentally-disabled daughter who at 13 years old is much smaller than the median, but has also outgrown booster seats. All 5-point safety seats and belt-positioning booster seats have a maximum shoulder height that is too low for my daughter, so we had no choice but to graduate her to our car’s back seat sans booster.. She does at least meet the criteria listed in the article (we are in California), but she is just a wee bit small for the regular seat belt configuration, and it makes me nervous as hell.
Literally all that is needed is an adjustable REAR shoulder belt like almost all cars have in the front. But I haven’t seen such a thing in my life, not even in luxury cars. How about it, automakers?!
Hey, we fought that battle. What we did – we made custom ‘mini-boosters’ out of memory foam for each car. Cut the foam with a bread knife, it takes a couple of tries and trial fits to get one that’s the right height and the kid doesn’t submarine out of, then sew it up with some low-slip fabric – we used denim. That got the kid up two inches to not get strangulated by the three point and allowed us to add a little back dump to the seat to help keep ’em in.
This! Please! My 78-year old mom is 5’0” and my car’s rear seatbelt hits her neck. I don’t allow her to ride in the backseat.
My mother-in-law is the same and I insist that she ride in the back seat 🙂
This is needed, most rear shoulder belts are WAY too high. Still better than the lap belts we had as kids but the automakers CAN do better.
Some GM trucks used to have a “comfort guide” – a small piece of plastic that goes around the rear seatbelts and is attached to the seat via a stretchy cord. I have no idea if it’s still around.
Are short 15 year olds supposed to be in a booster seat while practice driving? And if not, who gets the ticket, them or the supervising licensed driver?
As for it as a means of government control, I see an awful lot of room for officer discretion, especially on the last point of “the entire trip”.
The selective enforcement on this is going to be lit. Don’t know if they still do, but CHP and some fire departments would demonstrate how to install child seats for first-time parents and the like.
Now, I guess, California gets to collect $490 if a Chippee decides he wants to make a fuss about where “the center of a child’s chest” is.
And lest I be unclear, I think advocating for safety is a good thing. But mandating child seats at threat of fines for 12-year-olds based on subjective criteria is going to have – and I’m guessing here – roughly the same net effectiveness as DARE, which is to say, none at all.
I agree, it may read as somewhat defined, but trying to apply the criteria to a squirmy kid in the back seat on a traffic stop is a little iffy. I suppose the goal was compliance and safety more than enforcement, but it just seems like a bit much to me.
Unfortunately (but logically) seats are designed for some median size and weight. Anyone at the other two ends will suffer some inefficiencies until completely adjustable seats become standard. The car industry did drag their feet over seatbelts, and here we are.
I think the people yelling at gubamint here are missing the point that it is odd that cars wouldn’t have proper protective systems for people of the edges of the height distribution. With all the technology advances there has got to be a better way than using a patch.
In europe some countries have it limited to 150cm or 12yo but if you were too small its not because you turn older that you’re safe, even if you’re an adult. Seems to me like it starts just becoming acceptable to have a teenager – or adult passenger – die in the car than a child.
Also laughing at the people saying “i survived riding in the back of a truck” or the like; i survived riding in the back of my dad’s griffith 500, yet had he got in one of the many accidents he had with it while i were there i’d have died. Many people die in car crashes they just dont get the luck to reply to these posts
People die in all sorts of far more mundane ways, like slipping in the bathroom. Our friendly pet dogs kill 25-35k people per year. How far do we go in the name of “safety” that’s forced upon us by someone else for our own good? What are the odds it’s about caring about us vs there being money behind selling seats or exerting control through continued infantilization and fear-mongering of the populace? But, I absolutely agree that the car companies should be designing all the shoulder anchors for better adjustment. Hell, I’m 5’11” and the shoulder belt in my GR86 comes up a bit high on me with the seat down low.
Money behind selling booster seats is a good material thesis behind it but the control of the populace through booster seats idea is inane. It’s to me (thinking about it more) plain misguided regulation that doesnt annoy the manufacturers one bit having to design better seating and passes the responsibility and annoyances on the purchaser. Half measure that pisses off everyone but manufacturers
It’s not in itself, it’s indicative of a pervasive, almost overwhelming infantilization of the populace through enforced “safety” regulations “for our own good” at the cost of simple carefree enjoyment and electronic monitoring and data mining in the interest of false comfort features and pacifying entertainment. It’s the annoying endless menus and unnecessary alerts one has to deal with to operate a machine that used to require simple inputs, it’s the condescending warnings and messages many of us apparently don’t even notice. If I believed they were smarter, I’d also count the annoyance as part of it, keeping people in a constant state of fear and frustration makes them think less, makes them more susceptible to manipulation, to eventually get to the point where the people beg Big Brother to keep them safe, a point many seem to have already passed.
That’s a lotta kool aide
The “condescending warnings and messages” wouldn’t be there if not for all the very expensive lawsuits from “but how was I to know” ignoramouses. Adult consciously choosing informed risk? Needs no labels. Adult assuming everyone but him is responsible for knowing what the hell he’s doing? Leads to labels.
There are lots of those (and, while I think they need to let the dummies take themselves out, that’s a different conversation), there are a lot of alerts that are unnecessary and not really related to safety or CYA that could have resulted from lawsuits. Why does every appliance have to alert obnoxiously that it’s done? If I’m close enough to the appliance, 99% of the time, I can hear it end and if I’m far enough away, I can’t hear the alert. For almost any appliance, in neither instance does notifying that the cycle is done a matter for safety.
My car tells me it could be icy when it’s under 37*, like, no shit. Also tells me the ignition has been on for 2 hours. Again, no shit, WGAF, I know damn well—I’m the one driving. If I’m tired, I’ll stop, if I’m not going to, a stupid alert isn’t going to change my mind. It’s not only these dumb alerts, either, but the second guessing. Almost everything requires multiple inputs to achieve a single objective whether it’s some of the most common choices being unnecessarily buried in menus mixed with garbage settings or features almost nobody uses (bad UI is the industry standard) or because the button is programmed not to register the first press. Then there’s the over explaining, telling you what that input will have the machine do, which is exactly why you pressed it in the first place! OK, yeah, maybe an “overwrite HDD” command can have an “are you really sure?” sneeze-factor popup to confirm, but if the microwave starts cooking on the first press of the cook button instead of the second (or third if you don’t massage it exactly right) like good old analog appliances did, WGAF? Oh, I sneezed or I’m clumsy and hit it in error? Open the door or press “cancel/pause” or even shrug and let it go, it’s not a safety issue and is an unnecessary annoyance for the 99.99% of times you hit the button/dial/whatever with intention and it doesn’t work, then you hit it again and wait to see if the second time was the charm (because every damn input today has to be processed through some shitty computer that has to decide if it will comply). Almost everything today is like this. It’s gone way beyond any loose arguments of safety or legal-team CYA to societal infantilization, conditioning people to be told what they feel and think until they can no longer so for themselves (already well on the way!) and whether it really is insidious planning or complete stupidity behind it, the effect is the same (I actually believe it’s the latter because people are too selfish, short-sighted, and stupid for such a conspiracy, but I think that’s worse because a plan would be easier to stop than a mass unintentional trend).
“People die in all sorts of far more mundane ways…”
I’m a paraglider pilot. I am a rock and ice climber. I’ve soloed (no protection) 1500ft ice couloirs. I race bicycles. I do open sea crossings on multi-day kayak expeditions. I am *extremely* attuned to the concept of risk and consequence.
The problem is the inability to understand and have informed consent to accept risk. People think their cars are engineered to be safe. The fact that it’s only true for *some* of the occupants is the problem.
Show me where you got that dogs kill 25-35K people per year please…
I call bullshit. Bullshit I say.
Let’s try to be real here, ok?
Yeah, that surprised me too. In the US, it looks like…
* 4.5 million people are bitten a year
* 800,000 needing medical attention (can just be cleaning/bandaid)
* 370,000 emergency room visits (may still be minor)
* 12,600 requiring inpatient care
* 30-50 deaths. 43 avg, 81 high; ~76% are from two breeds
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EDIT: For a non-dog anecdote, sometimes the “emergency room” is because other places refuse to deal with it out of potential liability in the event their (caregiver) insurance won’t cover adverse outcomes.
An example is I had a slip in a bathroom and ended up with a good cut around my eyebrow. I patched it up myself, but wanted it looked at. Every pharmacy clinic and even urgent care facility refused to look at it, and wanted me to go to the ER. Not wanting to pay stupid money, I continued to refuse and somehow managed to book an immediate appointment quickly at a clinic. The nurse and doctor in attendance agreed: ER was a great way to spend 10-25x more money for no better outcome. It was first aid that really just required “three hands” to do the best possible job, and I was told my personal first aid was actually more than adequate. Doc said it was other facilities avoiding their potential liability as to why I got ER recommendations. Even uninsured if it was entirely out-of-pocket it would’ve been $65 within Boston metro; ER? Up to $2000.
Appreciate you looking this up. Really.
Too many folks just pull numbers out of their ass and present them as fact. Thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_deadliest_to_humans
Supposedly according to BI, CNET, and BBC.
Thank you. TBH I still think it’s bull shit.
But do appreciate you backing up your statement.
I was surprised it was that high myself and I wasn’t expecting to use dogs as an example, but with 471M domestic dogs in the world (according to statista.com in 2018), that turns out to be a very tiny percentage causing fatalities even with the worst owners often having the most dangerous dogs.
Thanks again. It’s pretty hard to believe these numbers just the same.
I also wonder what constitutes a dangerous dog. My own experience with dogs has been really good. Three of my last few were pit bulls, adopted from shelter. Some dogs, (like people) get a bad rap whether or not they deserve it.
My wife was a small woman, barely over 100lbs. Yet when she would walk our dogs most folks would move to the other side of the street. Ours were never combative, they loved almost every human they encountered.
On the other hand I adopted a mini Australian Shepard who is now 22 lbs. and a year old. He behaves like a Tasmanian devil, a total lunatic. He regularly beats the crap out of his 65 lb sister who is a lab.
She refuses to defend or retaliate against his crap.
It may depend on how the owners raise and treat them?
By dangerous, I mean ones realistically capable of causing adult fatalities. I wouldn’t qualify something like a Pomeranian even though the ornamental dogs tend to bite more statistically because they’re unlikely to cause serious injury to anyone bigger than a toddler (and are still underreported because of it). A determined squirrel could do some serious damage to a person, but I wouldn’t consider them a dangerous animal. Something like a German Shepherd is absolutely physically capable of killing someone and are sometimes trained specifically to do so, so I’d say (and most lists of dangerous dogs includes them) they’re dangerous even though every one that I’ve known was a goof ball (though very protective so some of those fatalities might have earned it).
I dug into his link. It’s correct, but there’s extremely important context: it’s not only global (not US), but also from rabies, not bite “damage”: https://www.theautopian.com/california-just-made-booster-seats-mandatory-for-children-under-16-but-only-if-theyre-small/#comment-844706
Which is correct, but there’s extremely important context there too:
* Those deaths are global
* Those deaths are primarily from rabies transmission. This is important as US annual rabies deaths are very low due to its extremely good rabies control and response.
Rabies kills ~60,000 a year globally, but typically fewer than ten (as in, count on two hands, not thousands) in the US per year. Of those global rabies deaths, 40-45% of the transmission is dog-mediated.
About 60% of total rabies deaths are in Asia, with 60% of those in India (so about 21/59K annual deaths are India), and China also far up there. Then you’re getting more to places like parts of central Africa.
That actually why the liability for dog bites is so high. It’s less because of the physical damage, but because dogs are #3 globally for rabies transmission. If the US’s control of rabies were to significantly falter, things could go off the rails over time, and insurance companies want nothing to do with that disaster.
Going back to India for a moment, 97% of rabies deaths are from dogs, with 2% from cats, and the other 1% are jackals, mongeese, and other animals.
Humans are global, I wasn’t looking for US statistics and didn’t present them as such. Mosquitoes (the original creature I was looking for numbers of to post) kill the most humans by far, but none of them are from attacks, it’s from disease. Dead is dead and the point of mentioning dogs wasn’t to cause fragile dog lovers a fit, it was that they’re the animals we tend to think of as our friends the most, that are one of the most common domestic pets, which simply makes them a great example of the overlooked potential danger of the ordinary not some #notallpitbulls #nobadodgsonlybadowners or whatever campaign call-to-arms. I don’t see people spending much time fretting about the potential danger of either of these creatures, yet The Man introduces nonsense regulations that are of highly questionable efficacy for an unlikely event in exchange for very real emotional damage to already vulnerable kids by their very use and some people are, like, yeah, this is fine. Where’s the concern for mental health before the damage is done? This seat regulation is a far greater threat in regards to that than of any dubious value it may hold in a crash that will likely never happen.
It would also be very difficult to impossible to attribute the use of this device to being the reason a teen was unharmed in a crash (and entirely speculative if they were “less harmed”), but those kinds of numbers are sure easy to manipulate by the government to claim they actually did something useful for their constituents and for seat manufacturers to use to push other states to adopt this so that they can sell more seats. I have seen little to no evidence that government or corporations (or even many individuals) GAF about other people beyond what they can get out of them be it money, sex, votes, validation, etc. and here lies a very clear path of being able to tout “saving lives” by a parasite with little other positive claim looking for votes and campaign funds and corporations who make this junk getting money through additional sales (I further back this assertion by the manufacturers’ common claim that these seats effectively expire in a mere few years, which they do to eliminate the secondary seller market, forcing more new sales, which shows a pattern of lying and sleazy behavior when the plastics used are far more resilient than that, especially being dark colored, which resists UV more. Hell, I have a kayak made out of the same material—actually, it’s made of less durable recycled plastic, not the virgin plastic I imagine they use—that’s almost 25 years old with no apparent loss of flexibility or even color fading). Maybe I’m just a cynic after 49 years of dealing with and observing humanity and this is all truly (misdirected) good intentions, OK, it’s still a terrible idea.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/448169/deadliest-creatures-in-the-world-by-number-of-human-deaths/?srsltid=AfmBOoqTaVLrIg1oJcFldYbC5NYrTp_ck3oVARLMOYeZe7GnkBycI_pr
You need to trust a user name like Cerberus to be accurate with statistics about dogs.
Down the page a little on the statista.com link:
the vast majority of these deaths resulting from rabies that is transmitted from the dog
OK, that makes it a tad more believable.
Well, the reason it applies to children and not adults is primarily that adults are permitted to decide they’re cool with the risk for themselves, but passenger minors don’t really get a choice. So in this case, the safety being forced is the minors’. Whatever profit is to be made off booster seats is a lot less than all the giant medical bills, lawsuits, etc when someone dies. That’s before even caring about human life enters the picture. Even if they’re in for purely financial reasons “not killing/maiming people” is generally a cost saver.
Seventeen is still a minor, but this only goes to sixteen. Also, seat belts are a law for adults, so if it’s about safety, why not force this on adults, this feature that is ostensibly meant to make seatbelts safer? This inconsistency is why it’s a bunch of BS.
It goes to sixteen because in the US you can get a license at 16. So even if you’re not driving, they’re basically saying if you’re potentially a driver, they’re not trying to apply it to you. Which is the same reason they’re not forcing it on adults across the board.
You seem to be saying “this is an overreach” and also “since it could’ve been an even bigger overreach it’s clearly insincere” as opposed to considering that this is a “choose your battles” situation?
That’s exactly it. It’s completely and utterly insincere performative BS, by government parasites, which is all they ever seem to do anymore when they’re not outright taking bribes and turning the power over even further to the billionaire class. But, unlike most of the performative safety BS, this one is actively emotionally harmful to already vulnerable kids all for the very remote possibility that it might reduce injury in a crash (most likely, they’re getting manufacturer kick backs and, desperate for something to tout as a success for their next election campaign because they have so little else, they pushed this garbage through. No matter how stupid it is, these shit weasels know that framing something as “won’t someone think of the children” makes it an easy pass because nobody wants to be painted as hating children even when the law is actively harmful to them). This stupid f’n device is unlikely to even make a difference that would save a life! My niece, who is ten and goes to a f’n parochial school caught shit from other kids over having a booster seat because she’s smaller than average and, likely being on the spectrum, this hit her already low self esteem particularly hard. To keep this as civil as I’ve been able to manage and reduce the possibility of a visit from The Man, I won’t get into what I would like to happen to the people behind this.
The dogs are an interesting example. The vast majority of those are from rabies, and.. in the US, we have a bunch of requirements for vaccination. As a result, the number of deaths is a couple orders of magnitude lower than in countries were rabies is common in dogs.
Yes, that’s why it was the punchline to the Michael Scott rabies walk. I already responded elsewhere how the comment wasn’t about triggering fragile dog lovers (nor about the US, as it’s in regards to the stupidity of humanity, which are global), it’s that people seem to have little capability to assess risk—ignoring higher risks while overreacting to minor risks (or, apparently, any mention of dogs that doesn’t involve talking in a high voice, a little tap dance of joy, and a starry-eyed squee)—and that greater mundane risks surround us that we don’t even think about.
Agreed.
I know the reasoning: Basically, rather than building the cost into the vehicle and driving up the base price of a vehicle, there’s “benefit” to pushing the cost onto a third party, as the customer can then tailor the solution to the squishy bit that has variability and the vehicle OEM can’t entirely control for.
Though I agree something like height adjustable shoulder anchors are a middle ground that should be worked towards, where suppliers could provide a better starting point to OEMs that provides a better baseline for everyone.. Yet again, it raises vehicle price, and it’s not a “sexy solution.” Yet it’s something I feel Volvo or Mercedes historically would’ve went after to tout if we had a 1990ish market again.
—
I just went and learned too much about footwear after visiting a podiatrist and then actually visited a shop that REALLY knows footwear… and it’s similar. To get the best result, you need the best basic “shoe” shape for you, and then you dial it in with an insert, which you get close to perfect by cutting that insert to fit (if required).
Has any automaker ever developed adjustable rear belts/seats to address this sort of thing? Seems like something Volvo would have put in a concept car at some point. It would be a much less embarrassing solution to ill-fitting seatbelts.
I read a while back that some guy funded his own crash testing (not to OEM standards, but the point was to encourage further study, which I don’t think happened because there’s too much financial interest in selling child seats—especially with that BS that they “expire” in a short time frame so that they can’t be resold used—and in OEMs not spending the money to redesign their belts) and more or less showed that simply having adjustable height shoulder belt anchors in the rear would negate the need for child seats past a certain age where they’re currently required (I forget the conclusion on specific height).
That seems like something that could be done with fairly minimal cost. Maybe if this booster seat thing goes through manufacturers will start putting this feature in their cars so that they can advertise that your kid wouldn’t need a booster seat at all! Has Dodge ever implemented a new safety feature before Volvo or Mercedes before?
That’s not a bad idea for a more sensible world, but I think they’d have to lobby to change laws (even outside CA), as the seats are required based on the kid’s size regardless of seatbelt mounting. As a bonus, it would be better for short adults who the seatbelts sit too high for. I don’t know how many cars have adjustable rear belts, but it can’t be many and not all fronts are adjustable or adjustable enough. What the government should be doing in this regard is stating that the belts should be able to fit a certain range, say 4’10” to 6’5″ or whatever (I think they could take seat height into account to make it easier).
Not sure if this is the same testing you are refering to, but freakenomics did tesitng a while ago and came to that conclusion.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-much-do-we-really-care-about-children-ep-447/
My guess is if this goes through there will be a huge reduction in death and injury in the 8-16 year age range, not due to any additional safety, but the fact that kids that age will refuse to get in cars.
Volvo has/had seat that folds from the backrest, at least in Europe. Google Volvo integrated booster seat. Neat, but functions basically the same as a 50€/($?) seat from a supermarket/parts store.
Volvo has the built-in boosters in a lot of cars! My buddy loves them in his V70.
The 2001 V70 my mom got when I was eight had rear booster seats that folded up out of the seat bottom. Clever idea, no idea if that feature is still offered today. It was nice not having to ride in a real booster seat at that age.
Still remember being bummed out when my family sold our 89 Accord. With no passenger airbag, I could ride up front anytime I wanted. I had to wait till I was over five feet tall to ride up front in our passenger airbag equipped cars.
GM has/had “comfort guides” in their full-size trucks.
I’ve been sarcastically making a joke about this for years and here we are in this reality. Once again, I have the complete opposite reaction and will have to edit this carefully to remain as civil as I can manage. The small kid is already getting shit and being left out of social situations for being small and now they’re to be insulted and have their self esteem further damaged by this “only thinking of your welfare” BS by parasite politicians who claim the damage is worth the tradeoff for the very unlikely chance they’re involved in a crash and the even further remote possibility that some piece of plastic giving them an extra couple inches of height makes a damn bit of difference in what happens to them in said unlikely event. Meanwhile, you’re all but guaranteeing even more emotional damage that will haunt them and perhaps hold them back for life, possibly even contributing to turning to drugs or other self-harm. The odds are not difficult to figure here, but then again, millions of people pin their future hopes on actually winning the lottery, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I also wouldn’t doubt that the real reason for this is that some dirtbag company that builds these kid seats is donating money to the politician’s campaign. As a kid I wouldn’t have wanted this (thankfully, I was tall) and I wouldn’t want this for mine. Living is in itself a risk, so maybe try to enjoy the time you have or at least minimize the emotional damage so you can enjoy the enjoyable moments when they make themselves available. Besides, you get some kid with maybe a little bit of something else going on who takes their pain and transforms it into external anger rather than internalizing it and that’s one way to get violent public events “nobody saw coming”. Extreme coddling, obsession with safety, control and curation of every moment of a kids’ day, fear of failure, and hair-trigger fear of the slightest danger when danger is inherent to life is a major reason we have generations of unhappy, fragile kids who feel unseen, who have no idea who they are, and no idea how to find out. It’s not their fault, it’s ours (well, not mine—I don’t have kids, partly for reasons such as this).
“If it saves a single life” is an incredibly powerful phrase, both motivationally and as leverage. Sadly, it can be used to justify all sorts of insane and impractical things.
Yeah, I guess it’s a case of ignoring the larger picture. To put numbers on things that can’t really have numbers, you could imagine a policy that saves 1 life, but simultaneously destroys, say, 0.1% of the life of a million other people. So in this case the policy would save 100% of a life, while destroying 100,000 life percentage points, making it a pretty bad idea. It’s just an impossible thing to quantify, though. Is it worth it to allow one person to die for the greater good? We want to say no, but I guess the moral difference is in the word allow. You can’t just kill an innocent for the greater good, but you can allow an innocent to be killed by life in order to avoid (slightly) oppressing the greater number. The question is just in judging how much spread-out inconvenience is worth any given number of lives (at least if you’re coming from a purely utilitarian philosophy, which I wouldn’t be)
There’s no “right” answer – even if you boil it down to cold, hard statistics you’ll still get disagreements between people. Where to set the speed limits, for example. Or whether speed limits should be enforced by in-vehicle technology, Both could save lives, neither have universal agreement.
It’s such an incredibly powerful phrase, but like you said, often used for the worst things. It’s the EXACT tactic RFK Jr and his department are using to justify things like claiming an Ibuprofen causal link with autism. “Well even if there is ANY chance, just don’t do it.” Ok sure, but for one, there is NOT any evidence there is a chance, and two, the side effects of avoiding that incredibly safe thing are possibly far far more harmful. It feels like another variation of the slippery slope and leap in logic fallacies, but with a nice and impactful “but the children” bow on top.
Just a question for the crowd. I have a 1990 MR2 (no rear seat). Can my grand kid (7 year old) ride with me? Colorado if it makes a difference.
You could probably call your local sheriff’s office or maybe fire department to find out the rules. While people giving advice are undoubtedly well meaning, sometimes it’s better to go to the authority.
Edit: I expected you to ask if a child could ride on your Hayabusa 🙂
Where I live (Canada), my 6 year old is allowed on the back of my ZX-11.
Our law is about size and not age, if the kid can reach the pegs comfortably and reasonably, the kid can legally ride on the back.
At least in California, the Hayabusa is cool if the kid can reach the foot pegs.
Why wouldn’t your kid be allowed to ride with you? If he’s still in a booster, put it in the car. There’s no airbag there.
I used to ride in the front seat of our 1989 Accord when I was four and five years old with no booster seat, because it didn’t have an airbag. I imagine as long as your kid is wearing their seatbelt you should be just fine. I don’t think you’d run afoul of any laws! If a booster seat helps you could put one in there till they get a bit taller.
I remember at age 9 riding around in the back of my dad’s Silverado pickup. No booster seat, ne seat belts sometimes we weren’t even sitting down just street surfing in the back. The funny thing is at 63 I don’t pass all the requirements to ride like an adult. My thighs are to short to bend my knees enough to touch the floor and my stomach is too big for the belt to reach my waist.
Look, I’m pro safety and not usually seen yelling at clouds. I’m somewhere between the olds (sorry) who were piled into the back of wagons and truck beds, and more the age where I was in a carseat till I was two, and a booster till I was 4 or 5 (though there were times as I got older that we would put two kids to a lap belt in certain situations so safety wasn’t always job #1 lol).
My kids are currently in boosters, 4 year old in a high back booster, 7 year old in a regular booster. They’re slightly larger than the average kid. I have no issue with keeping them in seat boosters till they’re… 9? Maybe 10? I was in the front seat by 7, I feel like a booster to 10 and backseat life until a teen is fine. And if it’s so dangerous to have a tween not on a booster in the back, then maybe car manufacturers need to redesign the damn backseat for the people who actually sit in the backseat.
With ya on the potential redesign.
I’m not that short and, proportionally, longer of leg. Still, I can’t sit comfortably or safely (for my back) on most modern livingroom furniture – the seats are too dang deep.
I feel like most living room sofas are more designed to be laid on than to be sitting upright comfortably. I’m 5’10 and my lower back doesn’t quite hit the back cushion properly with my legs over the edge.
I’ll add, The Autopian may have the only comment section where some people admit that they aren’t 6’5 lol. It’s refreshing.
I was shocked when I leaned lazy boy had done just that. Made things comfortable and uncomfortable based on height. It’s bad in mixed height households. But the Chinese make these little $120 theater chairs it seems everyone is comfortable in except for in reviews some Karen’s say their “tall” 5’8 husband doesn’t fit. My buddy is 6’7 and probably 450lbs and was sleeping in it saying how comfortable it is then bought one.
Is this the part where I am supposed to say I would love to have a Miata, but I just don’t fit?
Haha, yes! I get that there are genuinely plenty of people who don’t fit in Miatas. But based on certain comment sections, you would swear that literally nobody fit into them. Like the entire car enthusiast community is comprised of NBA forwards.
I think don’t fit is a relative term based as much on tolerances or what you are used to as much as you and the car’s size. My first couple cars were Austin Healey Sprites and most cars, even Miata’s, are spacious by comparison.
Yeah, for all the stupid nonsense they force upon car manufacturers, WTF isn’t there a requirement for height-adjustable shoulder belts? If they did it properly and with enough adjustment, kids even younger could dispense with the landfill-clogging seats all the sooner, but of course, the seat manufacturers contribute to parasite politicians campaigns to expand the use of their product and the OEMs would rather not spend the money, either, so we get more overpriced trash we’re forced to consume and told we’re assholes who hate children if we protest.
In a world where nearly every vehicle is a large, space inefficient crossover with plenty of space for packaging such things, adjustable rear seatbelts really shouldn’t be a tough thing to make happen.
Maybe people not smart enough, or forgetful/can’t be trusted to adjust? I am not saying I agree, but on the other hand, it is easier to remember to do big things than little things. “Kid needs a booster seat” just registers harder than “kid “b” is in the right rear, not kid “a”, I need to adjust the shoulder strap thing two notches”
That’s a good point, though incorrect installation is also a big issue with child seats and they’re more complicated to use than a belt. At some point, the dummies always prevail.
Notable missing safety regulations for cars:
But, we will regulate that turn signals need to illuminate some specific amount of square inches on their initial turn on, so we can’t get cool euro turn signals.
Absolutely agree with all of those!
I wish there were more requirements for the view out. The crash standards and everybody’s desire to do well in them result in us driving turret topped tanks with limited view out. I have had cars coming in on a 90 degree intersection blocked from view until almost to late by the sloped and far A-pillars on modern cars. The best crash safety standard is not to crash in the first place.
Booster seat, eh? When I was a kid, my sister and I would try to lie on the package shelf of Dad’s boattail Riviera. *yells at cloud, but this is true*
I’ve known petite, adult women who might not have been borderline to meet these requirements in certain cars.
My sister always sat on top of the fold down armrest in the rear of our Mercedes.
I sat in the parcel bin of a 1962 Corvair. Which was vas safer than sitting on a child’s rattan chair wedged between the seats and the gas tank of an MGTD.
A cushion that perched on the tiny driveshaft tunnel in an Austin Healey Sprite was offered as a factory option child seat. By all reports not a popular option, but just the fact that it was offered show how different things were then.
I just googled to find a reference or picture, Jason Torchinsky wrote an article about this on Jalopnik in 2017, I was not aware. https://www.jalopnik.com/this-iconic-british-sportscar-had-an-optional-baby-seat-1794182582/
My 914/6 has the M570 optional third seat and M166 – seat belt for M570.
Of course it’s a lap belt to ensure that anyone sitting in the center seat will get impaled on the gear shift. It does ma it legal to give an extra passenger a ride though.
There has to be some kind of association that will fight that nonsense. Whenever the government sites “smart” or “safety” it’s rarely either just some way to piss people off, assert control and generate income. With the way the political elites are in that place I wouldn’t doubt it’s targeted at certain people that tend or be shorter while giving lip service saying how wonderful and tolerant they as individuals are. I could see 10 or 12 but 16 is too far. Next they will raise it to 18 then 21 then say short people need some kind of special seat or some other insanity.
Common sense is the wordplay. See that and you have to check thrice.
This – most modern cars now have adjustable top belt anchors, absolutely unheard of 25 years ago.
Not everybody worries about the short people.
Like Randy Newman?
This guy gets it! I don’t even know WHY I include hyperlinks.
Or, and hear me out here, because this is gonna sound strange: Maybe it’s not about control, or income, or the irritation of short teenagers, maybe it is just about safety?
Personally I doubt it’s about control or income. To me it seems like a pretty clear case of good intent breaking the boundary of common sense. YMMV.
Calm down it’s only been a little while since they even even thought of changing the regulations on airbags so as to not kill short people outright.
I wonder what the rules are for children in a Vespa sidecar while hauling a camper and a rowboat?
Immediately custody removal and places with a family the state determines has the proper values. Only to be suied for abuse when the child reaches age of majority.
Other than the age, it looks like my mother in law should be in a booster seat. LOL
Isn’t this really a fix of a fix for the poor testing protocols? The ones that use an “average” male dummy to test almost everything? I think things have recently moved a little bit towards more diverse dummies.
When there’s a test you’ll design to meet the test and when the test is for “average” your design famously won’t actually work correctly for anyone.
By 16, one is likely at or near full grown adult height. My daughter was booster seatless by 10? I understand the risks … but social stigma and simple logistics are also a thing. Imagine having to put a booster seat or two in you car just to help transport a middle school sports team to an event.
Things are so much safer than they were during my childhood (’80s) but we likely have passed the point of diminishing returns. We are no longer riding in pickup truck beds as was common in my childhood.
I’ll stop yelling at the cloud now.
My God. Imagine being a small 15 year old with a summer birthday. Your 16 year old friends will start driving and you instantly become either a pariah who never gets invited anywhere because no 16 year old is carrying around a booster for his tiny friend or you end up the butt of every joke because your parents drop you every where (in a booster).
Bingo – chained to a car seat until liscensed?
My 15 year old son would probably fail the 5 factor test. It is hard enough being the smallest kid in your friend group. I would probably just risk the ticket if I lived in California rather than subject him to the humiliation ritual of having to go everywhere in a booster seat. I am picturing the traffic stop now:
“Why isn’t he in a booster seat?
“He is 16.”
“If he is 16 he probably has a license.”
“He does not have it on him.”
“Do you have his school ID so I can see what grade he is?”
“Left it at home.”
I’m right there with you. Between seatbelt laws and passenger safety standards things are so much safer than when we were kids. I wonder if there have been any studies done to see whether this is a real issue. It reminds me of them changing the standards for blinds so that you can’t have a cord because someone might get strangled by it. I am unable to find any evidence that it ever happened.
I have corded blinds on my gameroom, they would pull off the wall by the clips before a 15lb child would strangle.
I mean, I suppose an infant could be at risk if the parent wrapped it in the cord, but that seems like the parent is the problem, not the cord. The reason it even bothers me is that I had a high window over my stairs that let in a lot of hot afternoon sun. Other than an expensive electric blind, something with a cord would have worked, but not available.
Pets can get strangled by blind cords, especially cats and small dogs. Somewhat less likely to be a problem if they’re two cords hanging down rather than a loop.
We do keep the cord up because of our cat, yes. But that is pet parenting, not a design flaw.
How about needing brail bumps on drive thru ATMs? Or directions not to use a hair dryer in the shower? How many other stupid for safety laws are there? And maybe consider bellow a certain level of intelligence keeping them until they breed isn’t the answer.
Well, I’ve been in the back seat and requested that the driver stop so I can get some cash, so maybe braile isn’t the threat we think it is, but I get your point. The funniest warning label I ever saw was on some German hearing aid batteries: “For USA: Do not eat.”
Well, the Darwin Award was once a thing….
Probably cheaper and easier to just put braille on all the keypads rather than making separate ones for drive-through vs walk-up ATMs.
As far as the hairdryer goes.. that’s just common sense. Where “common sense” is a euphemism for “knowledge or belief held strongly, without much thought to where it was learned or how true it might be. Quite true in this case, but why do you know that? Either because you have more knowledge of how electricity works than most people need in their daily lives, or… because you’ve been warned so much that the safety label’s no longer relevant to you specifically.
I thought the cord thing was only to get rid of it being a loop. I remember when blinds moved to individual strings (or a pair that was braided up?) and was told they didn’t have loops anymore due to child choking potential, but I haven’t had blinds in ages, so maybe it’s gotten more strict?
When I was looking (it’s been five or six years) I couldn’t find anything with a cord, looped or not, so I assumed cords were banned.
How are they pulled up and let down—electric only? That’s ridiculous. Not having a loop, I get, but it would be pretty hard to strangle oneself with individual strings, not to mention the hanger clips for the blinds I had that barely supported the weight of the blinds and broke if you yanked them open too forcefully, like if you want to see the cops dragging out the car thieves that tried to escape by running up your driveway or the big woman across the street being arrested again for beating up her small boyfriend.
Well, the ones I have now have internal strings and some sort of spring loading. You move them up and down via a handle on the bottom rail. I fully agree that the likelihood of strangulation was negligible and it wasn’t necessary to change things.
Here, googled that for you.
https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2023/Nearly-Half-of-Incidents-with-Kids-and-Corded-Window-Coverings-Resulted-in-Death-GoCordless-to-Save-Lives
About nine kids a year.
Well, that article is long after I was looking – probably 2018, but thanks.
I still maintain that this is pretty much not an issue that needed addressing. in 2023, 47,000 people in the US died from gun violence (according to Pew Research) and the best we can do there is offer “thoughts and prayers”. I know, one isn’t related to the other, but my point is that maybe there are better places to soncentrate our efforts.
Look harder. A colleague’s child died this way. The devastation of his life, career, and family was unimaginable.
My condolences to your colleague. I never want to minimize any individual’s grief.
It was never a large number, but even a very quick search shows a few deaths a year, with the total climbing faster starting in the 80s as the looped pull cords became popular
7 or 8 years ago I searched and found nothing. Sorry to disappoint. Look, it’s not a hill I want to die on. I get it, things change. (including search results, apparently) I really don’t care about corded blinds.
And what if they’re still short at 17? What changes safety-wise that makes them not need the BS seat? They’re still a minor, so unable to be trusted to make their own decisions in the eyes of the law. I’d guess moving the age to 18 would be their next step.
I assume it’s because this regulation does not affect the legal age for permitted driving in California. Once you have a permit or a license, then you have to sit in the (much more adjustable) front seat, and then you are subject to a different set of regulations.
(Anyway, I have to imagine that this law would be struck down immediately if it affected too many short adult drivers.)
That makes sense in a sense, but they’d still possibly sit in back as passengers or be in a car without adjustable belts in the front. Age doesn’t change the risk that’s height-based. Now that I think of it, that would include old people, too, then. Some people might even shrink down into baby seat range—I think my grandfather shrank about 6″. No way I would have been telling him to get into a baby seat. He’d forget to the belt on and I didn’t want to tell him to buckle up—the man was over 100 and had survived being an orphan, the Depression, WW2, cancer, and my grandmother, he can be as unsafe as he wanted at that point (it was only that he forgot and he couldn’t always hear the annoying belt chime and I didn’t want to remind him as forgetting something made him think he might have Alzheimer’s even though he was too old for it at that point).
There are some cars where I *still* have the shoulder belt chafing my neck occasionally, and I’m 5’4”. Thankfully most cars these days have the anchor point adjustable for height.
Yeah, it’s interesting to look at some of the cars with tacked-on, rudimentary seatbelts before they did a lot of research about how/where they worked best and actually integrated it into the design. I wonder about that every time I strap into the Mondial: will this thing actually make it worse in a wreck (or flip)? I wonder if there is YouTube footage of crash tests of 40-year old cars…
Same here and i’m 5’6″. The adjuster on my Ford binds up the belt when it’s in the lowest position.
Yeah I have issues with the belts binding in that position, too, though it mostly seems to be binding up after I get out.
5’6″, same problem
Came here with the same complaint. A lot of times it seemed like it was just lazy design.
5’5″ – same issue. And, so, to keep it off my neck, I move it so some other even-more-incorrect location, figuring the belt will instantly move back to my neck in event of an accident but at least I won’t have been so chafed by it while driving.
I’m near 6′ but my wife and daughter appreciate the height adjustable belts on our modern cars.
This is just another anti-car movement. Imagine being 14 or 15 and showing up to the school dance in your fucking booster seat. Kids will never want to get in a car again in their life.
This may be the greatest attempt yet in the grand conspiracy to end all cars.
…sorta /s but I do think the shame will be real. The jokes will be brutal for the shorter kids.