Buckle Up – With a Boost!

Posted on 03/15/2011 @ 02:59 PM

Child advocacy groups in Florida have been trying since 2001 to pass a law requiring that kids who are too big for a car seat and too small to be adequately protected by a seat belt use a booster seat when riding in a vehicle. When these kids are involved in car crashes while using regular seat belts, the very seat belt their parents thought would protect them can cause serious injuries. Sometimes kids who are buckled in are even ejected from the car because they’re too small to be held in place by the seat belt.

I received an email a couple of days ago from Jo Neuman, a Children’s Movement supporter in Hillsborough County, about Florida’s House Bill 11/Senate Bill 238, which would require the use of booster seats. Jo serves on the Hillsborough County Council PTA/PTSA and is also a student at Hillsborough Community College. For one of her classes at HCC, she is working on a service learning project with the goal of raising awareness of the effort to pass a booster seat law in Florida (one of only three states that doesn’t already have this law!).

While this is not an issue that fits into one of the five main areas of focus for the Children’s Movement this year, as a mom, this issue is incredibly important to me. We all realize that there are many things that we cannot control when it comes to the safety of our children. But simply by making sure our kids are safely secured when they ride in a car, we can make a dramatic difference.

Of course, parents can certainly use a booster seat without a law that requires it. But the fact remains that if the law requires booster seats, more parents will use them, and more children will avoid injury or death.

Jo’s class at Hillsborough Community College has set up a Facebook page: click here to allow individuals to express their support for this effort, and the Hillsborough County Council PTA/PTSA is hosting an online petition for people to sign supporting HB 11/SB 238.

I’ve added my name to both lists, and I hope that many others will do the same.

Becky Newell
State Coordinator, West Florida
The Children's Movement of Florida 
becky.newell@childrensmovementflorida.org