Bill would require car booster seats

In 2002, Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed a bill to mandate booster seats for children too large to ride in a car seat but too small to wear an adult seat belt safely.

Few states had such a law at the time. Today, however, Florida is one of only three that don't require booster seats.

"Back then, I guess we couldn't be a leader in child safety - God forbid," said Sen. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, who filed a booster-seat bill this fall for the fourth straight year. "Since the other states had inadequate laws, we had to have one, too. Now we don't have that excuse."

Booster seats elevate children so that adult safety belts will fit them properly. Altman's bill would mandate car booster seats for children ages 4 to 7 or those under 4 feet 9 inches tall. Failure to use a booster seat would be a primary offense, meaning police could stop drivers for that reason and issue tickets.

The bill is Altman's top priority for 2010, he said. And he hopes he has reason to be optimistic now that lawmakers have toughened up adult seat belt laws.

"We've made not wearing seat belts a primary offense," he said, referring to a decade-old bill that became law this year. "That means we now have a standard that protects the safety of adults, but we don't have one that protects our children."

Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children in the United States, according to government and insurance-industry studies. In Florida, 35 child passengers younger than 10 died in crashes in 2008. An additional 7,754 were injured.

Existing state law requires car safety seats for children 3 or younger when riding in motor vehicles. After that age, children can use a regular seat belt without any additional safety restraint.

Arizona and South Dakota are the only other states that don't require booster seats for children ages 4 through roughly 7. In September, the National Transportation Safety Board criticized all three states for failing to pass such a law despite research showing that booster seats dramatically lower injury rates.

In 2003, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study revealing that children ages 4 to 7 were 59 percent less likely to experience injury in an accident if they were in a booster seat instead of just wearing a seat belt.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, examined 3,616 crashes involving 4,243 children ages 4 to 7. Of those, five wearing conventional seat belts had died and all who used booster seats survived. Those in belts had injuries "to all body regions," and the children in boosters had no injuries to the abdomen, neck, spine, back or lower extremities.

Seat belts can cause injuries for children too small to wear them properly, said Leticia Massam, traffic safety manager for AAA South in Tampa.

A poorly fitting seat belt "can be potentially fatal," Massam said. "You get also kinds of injury issues if the child is riding too low and the belt is too close to their neck or abdomen."

AAA South supports the age-height combination rule in Altman's bill, which Reps. Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City, and Richard Steinberg, D-Miami Beach, each filed separately in the House.

When Bush vetoed the 2002 version, he cited concerns about the intrusiveness of government into family affairs. Other objections that have been raised over the years include concerns about the availability of the boosters and the financial burden imposed on families.

Altman said he has heard "every possible excuse" for opposing his bill. In the past, he has tried watering it down to placate opponents, but not this year, he said.

"We're going to stand strong and stand on principle," he said. "It's the right thing to do."