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
This article missed the other part of this law: all children must ride in the back seat until age 13. So your 8 year old (or 11 year old) that is currently used to riding in the front seat has to go the the back seat on Jan 1
Fortunately California has the initiative process. Someone needs to start a ballot initiative to repeal this. I’ll be the first to contribute.
I’m late reading this, but I realized I didn’t actually know the booster seat law in NC and just found this fun nugget in the exemptions:
So as long as you bring more kids than you have seat belts you can just stack em up like cord wood!!
The booster seat lobbyists have done it again, it’s not about safety, it’s about money
My 14 yr. old will probably need a booster seat to drive when he gets his license.
Half the 7 year olds at school drop off (because California refuses to make school busses mandatory) are riding up front. I don’t see this having much of an effect considering they also don’t do general traffic enforcement around here.
My wife did a lot of reading about child safety in crashes, and when to let our kids graduate out of booster seats.
The first 2 points of these rules are in line with what we read, and make decent sense in terms of injury prevention:
Our middle child is really short (on target for < 4’10’) and she was probably 11 when we finally let her stop using a booster, so I’m curious if she passes the seat belt criteria.
The seating position conditions become arbitrary when the dimensions of a rear seat can change. What this means for your daughter, my good sir…
Is that you need a sports car with tiny back seats. Get yourself a 911. After all, it’s for your daughter’s sake!
I’ll escalate this to the Mrs right away!
How is this enforceable? Are the police going to randomly pull over vehicles and run this series of criteria on all small passengers in order to determine a violation? doubtful
I’ve often made the joke that kids will be required to sit in booster seats until they get a license at some point. Not happy to see that it is starting to become true.
“The child can stay seated in this position for the entirety of the trip”
With this criteria, how are families in California taking the kids on a road trip?
And how will Police determine this when deciding when to issue a citation? Actually, all five of the criteria will have considerable gray area in determining whether they pass or not, but that particular one is a good example of… politicians attempting to control every tiny detail of our lives, even with good intentions, are usually not very good at it.
“Aside from New Hampshire, every State in the union (and Washington D.C.) has a seat belt law for front-seat occupants.”
Well, New Hampshire’s motto is “Live Free or Die”, so that checks.
I’m glad I read the story and didn’t just rage at the headline. This law makes total sense in terms of safety, but wouldn’t it make more sense to require cars to have seat belts that can be adjusted to fit all reasonable body sizes instead? As evidenced in the comments here, quite a few adults (including our very own Mercedes Streeter) still have trouble with seatbelts that don’t fit them properly, which puts them at a much higher risk of injury or death in an accident.
My gen-X booster seat in 1973- a City of Chicago phone book in the center of the back seat with both lap belts fastened to the latch for the opposite side.
And if it was just me and dad, no mom, I was in the passenger seat with NO seat belt on.
What a world.
California should mandate helmets for all vehicle drivers and passengers.
It’s guaranteed to reduce injuries and deaths – who could argue with that?
Think of the economic boom created by selling millions of helmets. Think of the government revenue generated by the tickets issued for not wearing helmets. And the jobs created by creating a government entity to issue helmet subsidy payments to those unable to afford helmets.
I’m lobbying for a 15 MPH speed limit in all cities in California. I’m sure that will save some lives. Just do it for the children…
I guess we don’t care about small adults
How about if everyone just cares for themselves… as in being responsible for themselves.
Glad I grew up in the seventies, where nobody cared about car seats or booster seats.
I remember my little brother laying across the rear deck behind the back seat under the window on road trips.
I’m pretty sure my younger brother and I never sat in a car seat or a booster seat.
My dad was strict about people in the front seats wearing seat belts once we got older, though.
I mean that’s nice for you, but a lot more kids were thrown from cars in wrecks back then, and that’s traumatizing for everyone involved.
My first ‘car seat’ in the early 70s was some sort of chicken box. When I actually got a car seat, my mother was hit by a drunk driver and the car seat was thrown clear of the car, luckily I wasn’t in it.
I mean, the kids killed in car crashes aren’t around to post on the internet about how it turned out…
Those kids need a haircut.
Someone needed to say it. It was bugging me too lol
“The shoulder belt sits snugly across the center of the child’s chest and shoulder, not at the child’s neck”
Most cars that I drive *today* have seatbelts that touch my neck, even after I adjust them down. I would be so screwed here…
I was gonna say the same thing. I’m 5’6″ – not tall but not unreasonably short. Certainly on the higher end of average if I were a woman.
There are a LOT of back seat belts that try to go across my neck instead of shoulder.
A lot of little old people are gonna be pissed.
Same. My recollection is most places with height-based requirements do it at 4′ 11″, which I am taller than, but the neck thing still happens to me. Hard to tell if the new CA law is based on hard-data specific to where the car touches them vs safety and how that might differ from, say, adult bones and muscles and ligaments even if they’re the same height. I seems like the guidelines based on how someone fits on the seat and with the belt is meant to eliminate variance/injuries based on different vehicle seat dimensions, which height alone might not account for.
Safety testing and the ensuing regulations are notorious for ignoring women’s bodies, even in 2026 🙁
My sister probably would have had to use a booster seat until she was 15 or so.
Having been bullied in high school, I’d take my chances with getting a ticket and let my kid ride like a normal person, and can we agree that California sucks on this kind of thing? I’m not remotely right wing but damn, it’s like a parody with the cancer stickers on car windows and things like this.
I live in NY, am certainly well left of center (in this country anyway) and even we’re like “uhhhhh hey California… whatcha doing over there?”.
Your question contains words and sarcasm known to the state of California to cause cancer and/or reproductive harm.
Agreed. This: “But at the end of the day, I’d rather my kid be bullied and safely secured in the car.” Was written by someone without a kid who has been bullied at school. It’s heartbreaking and this law is freaking stupid.
I’m generally an advocate of regulations and such, quick to speak against people making fun of the “warning, hot drinks might be hot” labels, etc. But California sure knows how to make it look bad.
By other comments, it does sound like a lot of car seats are genuinely incapable of safely accommodating smaller people. This ought to be framed as a law protecting against oversized cars with oversized seats rather than a law “protecting” short people from themselves.