Insurance Brief: NTSB Says Booster Seat Laws Need a Boost

Posted & filed under Auto Safety, Child Safety, Insurance Briefs.

Most parents know that if you have a child under six years old or sixty pounds, they need to ride in the back seat of the car. Most parents also know that infants and toddlers are supposed to ride in child safety (often called “booster”) seats.

Unfortunately, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), twenty-one states, including both North and South Dakota, don’t have the same level of knowledge that most parents do, and in those states, child passenger safety laws don’t meet national safety recommendations.

Specifically, the NTSB believes that state child restraint laws should cover children up to the age of eight. As an example, South Dakota’s law only addresses children aged four and younger, and the law in North Dakota only applies to children aged six and below.

Eight states, says the NTSB, have either enacted or upgraded their child restraint laws over the last year, but despite that, millions of children remain at risk because of U.S. states and territories that lack strong protections.