A new child safety seat law takes effect Wednesday in Kentucky.
The law requires children younger than 8 and between 40-57 inches tall to ride in a booster seat.
Sharon Rengers, a registered nurse with Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, says boosters lift children up off the vehicle seat to improve the fit of the adult lap and shoulder seat belt.
“You want the belts to be on their hard, bony surfaces and not on their soft tissue, so they just need to be raised up higher so the belts will then fit their bodies better,” Rengers said.
When an adult seat belt doesn’t properly fit a child, the child is at risk of serious abdominal or neck injury. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for children ages four through eight, according to state police.
“Kids who should have been riding in a booster for protection, anyway, are now going to be required to. Kentucky’s law was at 50 inches before, which is way too small for a child to be able to fit adequately in a seatbelt by themselves,” Rengers said.
Under the new law, drivers can be issued fines for not having children in booster seats.
