Car booster seats urged for up to age 9

02/24/2006

Pat Doyle,
Star Tribune
Last update: February 24, 2006 – 12:32 AM

Saying Minnesota lags behind other states in safeguarding children in car crashes, insurance and hospital groups called Thursday for a law requiring motorists to strap all passengers younger than 9 in booster seats or other child restraints.

Minnesota now requires kids younger than 4 to be in child seats, but older children need only wear adult seat belts.

The booster-seat proposal would protect thousands of youngsters from fatal or serious injuries, proponents said. They say the current law was crafted long before research showed the shortcomings of seat belts in protecting children.

The proposal passed the Senate last year but stalled in the House amid complaints that the mandate would inconvenience and increase costs for motorists.

Thirty-four states have enacted laws similar to the one proposed for Minnesota.

“There is no excuse for Minnesota not to upgrade their law,” said Alan Korn, director of public policy for SafeKids USA. “We know a lot more today than we did in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s about how to protect children.”

A belt-tightening booster seat reduces a child’s risk of injury in a crash by 59 percent from the risk when wearing an adult seat belt, said Partners for Child Passenger Safety, which includes the Childen’s Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance. Children 4 to 8 wearing adult seat belts were three times more likely to receive abdominal injuries compared with children in booster seats.

Sen. Mike McGinn, R-Eagan, and Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said Thursday they were renewing their call for a booster seat requirement in state law. There would be exceptions to the requirement.

McGinn said inconvenience and government mandates were bigger issues than cost for legislators who opposed the requirement last year.

“Some folks feel this is an imposition that the state is placing on them,” he said.

Sen. Carrie Ruud, R-Breezy Point, voted against the proposal. “A lot of folks carpool to baseball games, hockey games, dance ... and you put the booster seat requirement in there and you really limit parents in their ability to do those things,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to pick up my granddaughter at day care or school without some kind of booster seat. And I certainly couldn’t carpool any of her friends ... without those seats.”

The federal government recently made state passage of booster-seat laws a priority. States that do so are eligible for grants to help subsidize the cost of funding child safety efforts. Minnesota could receive $350,000 to help pay for booster seats for low-income families. Booster seats can be purchased for less than $25.