Submitted by Armen Hareyan on Jun 27th, 2008
New law taking effect on Monday in Maryland makes children's car seat safety rules stricter.
Car cashes and failed child safety measures are the leading cause of serious injuries and death cases for children aged from 3. In Maryland only 1 out of 5 children aged from 4 to 8 are using booster seats, which is not a satisfying statistics.
Maryland health officials and lawmakers have decided to make children's car seat safety rules stricter to cover more children with the law and ensure child safety in cars.
Current rules are requiring a child to use a car seat until age six, weighting 40 pounds. The new car seat law will require children to use safety seats till the age of 8, weighting 65 pounds or being 4-foot-9 tall. Younger children will still use car seats, and older children will need booster seats to make adult seat belts easy and safe to use.
Children aged from 6 to 8 are found to suffer neck or abdomen injuries, because adult seat belts do not match for them. The new law requiring 4-foot-9 tall children to use booster seats will solve this problem.
This new law will affect 155000 Maryland children ages from 6 to 7, who are currently not required to use any safety seats. These children are probably happy with the fact of not using safety seats, but they will need to get back to them. Most of parents like the stricter law, because now they can explain to their kids that a policeman may stop their car and require payment if children are not properly restrained in a car.
Those disobeying the children's car seat safety rule will not be penalised by points to driver's license, but will be required a $48 payment.
Source:
Ruzanna Haroutiunyan 