Child safety seat laws

AAA Oklahoma’s Chuck Mai wrote this week that it’s been 31 years since Tennessee passed the nation’s first child safety seat law. For parents of young children, it’s hard to imagine not stressing out over which car seat to buy, whether a child needs a rear- or front-facing seat and when they can graduate to the much cheaper and much easier to lug around booster seats. Mai thinks Oklahoma’s law regarding child safety seats is due updating. Current law allows children ages 6 and older to be seated in booster seats or a seat belt. That means many parents let their 6- and 7-year-olds use regular seat belts before they’re big enough, he said. The safer route, he said, would be to require booster seats for children up to 80 pounds. That would be a huge change for Oklahomans, and one not all parents will be happy about. But Mai’s concerns are worth listening to.

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