It’s a time-honored tradition for young teenagers running out to a car to call “Shotgun!” to determine who gets the honor of riding in the front passenger seat. A proposed version of California Assembly Bill 435 would have put an end to that, banning children under 13 and teens up to 16 who were too small from the front seat, according to CalMatters. It would have also changed the current law to raise the age requirement for mandatory car seats from eight to ten, and up to age 13 for smaller children.
However, a lot of people, including legislators, believed the original bill was too restrictive, reports LAist. The version of the bill that passed maintains California’s current booster seat requirement until age eight or a height of four feet, nine inches, but adds a five-step test to determine if children between eight and 16 years old are belted in safely, wherever they sit. From LAist:
If the driver of a vehicle can’t answer “yes” to all of these five questions about their seat-belted child passenger, the driver could get a ticket and fines of $490.
1. Does the child sit all the way back against the seat?
2. Do the child’s knees bend comfortably at the edge of the seat?
3. Does the belt cross the shoulder between the neck and arm, resting on the collarbone?
4. Is the lap belt as low as possible, touching the thighs?
5. Can the child stay seated like this for the whole trip?
The new law, which goes into effect January 1, 2027, does not require a booster seat. It only requires that these five conditions be met, with or without a booster. If a child doesn’t meet these criteria without a booster, adding one should fix that, but be sure to use a safe one.
Fit, not age, is most important
This may seem like an excessively complicated list of demands, far beyond federal standards, which California has been known to from time to time. In this case, however, I think California has it right, basing safety and legality on a good fit rather than arbitrary age limits. Let me explain.
A while back, I was a NHTSA-certified child passenger safety technician as part of my job for a local transit authority. (My training and certifications are out of date, so I’m not speaking in an official capacity.) The first four steps of California’s five-step test are quite similar to the fitment criteria I used to check. Compare these to NHTSA‘s guidelines for proper fit in a booster seat:
8 – 12 Years
Keep your child in a booster seat until he or she is big enough to fit in a seat belt properly. For a seat belt to fit properly the lap belt must lie snugly across the upper thighs, not the stomach. The shoulder belt should lie snugly across the shoulder and chest and not cross the neck or face. Remember: your child should still ride in the back seat because it’s safer there.
NHTSA does not say to remove the booster seat at a specific age, but when the seat belt fits properly without one. Children come in all different shapes and sizes, so the right time to ditch the booster depends on the child. California’s five-step test teaches parents how to correctly determine this for themselves rather than follow arbitrary age requirements in state law, which I think is the right way to do it.
