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Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) today introduced legislation that will mandate states strengthen their child restraint laws, or face a loss of critical federal highway money.
Pallone ’s legislation mandates that states create legislation requiring children up to age eight be properly secured as recommended in the manufacturer’s instructions of a child car safety seat or booster seat appropriate to either the child’s age or size. The legislation also calls on states to require children up to the age 16 be restrained in a seatbelt, regardless of where they are sitting in the vehicle.
"Motor vehicles crashes are the number one killer of children over the age of one and many of these deaths could have been prevented," Pallone said. "My bill is a commonsense approach to protecting our children from either being injured or killed simply because they are not properly buckled into a booster seat. We should never compromise our children’s safety."
The introduction of Pallone's legislation follows a recent national study by the American Academy of Pediatrics that confirmed children are safer in car crashes when they sit in the back seat and are less likely to be injured when safety seats and seat belts are used. The study found that a combination of sitting in the back seat and using safety restraints would have prevented more than 1,000 of the 3,665 serious injuries to children under the age of 16.
New Jersey is recognized as a national leader in child seat safety and enacted a law in 2001 that is stronger than the minimum recommended standards. New Jersey's law requires children under the age of eight and weighing less than eighty pounds to be secured in a child car safety seat or booster seat, and requiring children between the ages of eight and 18 to wear a seat belt when sitting anywhere in a vehicle.
"I am proud to say that New Jersey's child safety seat law is one of the strongest in the nation," Pallone said. "But the large majority of other states have not been as willing to strengthen their laws. Congress needs to mandate a minimum standard to ensure that states take the necessary steps to help protect our children."
Under Pallone’s legislation, states would have until 2008 to pass their own laws before they would be penalized with the loss of important transportation funds. States that do not meet this mandate by 2008 would lose four-percent of their transportation funds. That number would
increase to six-percent in 2009, then eight-percent in 2010, and finally ten-percent in 2011 and beyond.
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