New Booster Seat Law For Colorado

As of  August 1st 2010 Colorado law states that all Children  between the ages of four to eight must be in a booster seat while in your vehicle.  Why eight? Studies have shown that children do not properly fit into a back seat of a car until somewhere between eight and 12 years old. Colorado lawmakers chose the age of eight as a minimum.

The new Colorado Child Passenger Safety Law goes into effect on Sunday, August 1st. A police officer will be able to administer a ticket if he pulls over a car and notices a child not in the appropriate child safety seat. There is a one-year educational period and only warnings will be issued to those violating the booster seat part of the law.

Parents need to explain to children that it is a safety issue and that it is not a matter of how mature they are. It's all about the size of the child and how he or she fits into the seat belt in the back seat of a car. The lap portion of a seat belt is absolutely critical to restraining the children.

Vera Fullaway of Colorado Child Passenger Safety says "If a child is not tall enough, the lap portion of the belt will slip over the hips and go into the abdominal area. Booster seats raise them up to the level of the seat belt so that the seat belt will fit them appropriately and the abdominal area will be guarded."

Fullaway says there are way too many accidents in Colorado where that lap belt has not protected a child because the boy or girl is not adequately secured. "We see anything as simple as hernia from one end of the abdomen to the other.. to injuring all the organs in the abdomen.. to as severe as severing the spinal cord somewhere in the abdominal level."

"We don't want to have children spend a lot of time in the hospital for surgeries. We want them to walk away from the crash and Belt Positioning Boosters are such a simple fix," Fullaway explained.

Fullaway also says the shoulder portion of a seat belt needs to fit across the child's collar bone and chest," Fullaway adds. "It should not cross their neck or be underneath the arms or behind the back."