Safety points

Just a general awareness posting, about car seat safety.  I know many people who think of car seat laws as designed to inconvenience them.  While I know that most of the time, you can take risks and get away with it, this seems to me one of those things that takes so little to prevent such an unthinkable event, so why not do it?  It's a minor inconvience for kids to not be able to sit up front, or in a booster seat (the seatbelt straps right over it?  How hard is that?  All you have to do is carry it to the car!).  I've taken some flak from people for my carseat stance-I feel regardless of what the laws say, if the child is small enough to fit comfortably in the carseat, then it's safer for them to be in the carseat!  Car accidents are so common and young children are so vulnerable! 
Here's a story of a six year old who died because his mother didn't use a booster seat for him.  An infant sibling survived because the carseat did it's job when both were ejected from the car.  And I'm posting these important points from the story:

So to clear up some confusion, these are the rules for boosters:


Your child has to be 8 years old. No matter how tall or heavy they are. This is due to the development of their hip bones and spine. Their bones have to be able to take the impact from a seatbelt, which distributes it less evenly than a 5-point harness, and in different locations.

Your child has to be 4'9" AND 8 years old. If they hit 4'9" at 6 or 7, they still need to be in a booster until they get to be 8. This is to help them at least be in the bare minimum range of the lowest average adults, since seatbelts are designed to fit adults, not children (and in Europe, according to a Safe Kids expert, smaller adults do use boosters).
If your kiddo hits their 8th birthday and is 4'9", congrats! Now all you have to do is the 5-Point Test to make sure they fit safely!

1.Can your child sit with their back flat against the back of the seat?

2.Do their legs bend comfortably past the edge of the seat?

3.Does the belt cross between the neck and shoulder?

4.Is the lap belt as low as possible, across the tops of thighs and hip bones?

5.Can the child stay seated like this the whole trip?

If the answer is no to ANY of those, your kiddo just isn't ready yet. If they won't leave the belt where it belongs, slouch, or fall asleep a lot, they are much safer AND likely to be way more comfortable in a booster. If the belt rides up on their belly, they risk damage to the internal organs, and if it ends up on their neck, it can crush their esophagus and trachea. Not good. Have you had the belt rub on your neck before? Ouch!