It seems like there ought to be an age threshold as well as a height threshold. That can't be doing 13 year olds much good psychologically to have to sit in baby seats.

My younger daughter Emily had a funny line last weekend. She had gone to a school dance with a volleyball teammate who lives in a nearby town. I asked her how it was and she said all right, except all the 8th grade guys in Fontana are 4 feet tall (lol). She is 5'8" and still growing.


>They just changed the law here as well. It is 4'9". My daughter's grandma is 4'9". My daughter would have been in a booster seat until she was 13 if that rule had existed even 2 years ago. She is 15 now. She was 4'9" until 13 and then shot up to 5'4" where she is now. Many of her friends are now too short to get their license. Quite a few are actually right at 4'9". They all have their learners permits but now can't get a license unless they grow!
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>>>>>In that case you're probably right. But I don't think there is much doubt left that on balance seat belts save lives. The safest combination of all is seat belts plus air bags.
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>>>>No doubt, but at what cost? Didn't the guvment take our liberties?
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>>>But where's the line? Does requiring the manufacturers to put seat belts and airbags have any effect on our liberties? Does requiring parents to have children appropriately buckled affect our liberties? Is it reasonable interference on behalf of the children.
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>>>I'm also seeing an interesting thing here because airbags just work. They're there and we don't have to do anything to use them. Seat belts we have to use or they're worthless. Yet the government requires both in cars.
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>>>FWIW, I do not understand why anyone would drive without seat belts and even more, why anyone would fail to strap a child in.
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>>>Tamar
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>>Totally agree. However, just last year a new EU regulation was introduces that meant all kids under a certain height (4' 7"?) now have to be in a booster seat. I don't know why - so they get a better view out the window? Meant that parents who'd got rid of them now had to buy new ones. And what if you have to transfer the kids to someone else's car, and they haven't got one, or their aunt or uncle takes them somewhere and they haven't got one? Well I believe there's special allowances for those occasions but doesn't that detract from whatever safety consideration they were meant to address?
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>>The EU is one example of meddling beaurocracy that most of us could do without.
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>>Terry