Michigan’s govenor Jennifer Granholm recently passed a bill requiring children between ages four and eight who are less than four feet nine inches tall to use a booster seat. The bill was prompted into action after data was analyzed from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety.
- The risk for injury to the affected age group is reduced by 59 percent when using a car or booster seat.
- Children in seat belts alone are four times more likely to suffer head and/or brain injuries than those in booster seats.
- States that have passed similar laws have also found that child restraint use increases dramatically when it is required by law.
Currently the law states that children under the age of four are required to ride in an infant or child car seat. The new law in Michigan will go into effect on July 1, 2008.
State representatives in Ohio are bringing forth new legislation in another step to help keep children as safe as possible. State Rep. Linda Bolon has proposed legislation that would keep retailers responsible for the removal of products from their stores that were deemed to be unsafe. There is already federal law in place, but Rep. Bolton would like to see retailers held even more accountable for unsafe toys. The new bill requires the following:
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Requires the director of Commerce to “maintain and update a comprehensive list of unsafe children’s products and make this list available to the public.”
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Requires commercial dealers to provide recall notices to customers or their designees and to post the information on the company’s Web site.
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Requires retailers to remove products listed as unsafe from their store shelves and Web site, provide recall notices to customers who may have provided an address or e-mail and to post recall notices in stores and on the store Web site where customers will see them.
The bill is expected to go to the floor in the fall. Yet another great step in insuring that our children are as safe as possible.
We all want to work as hard as possible to keep our kids safe, and that includes politicians who work day in and day out to enact legislation to make our states as safe as possible for children.
KidsInDanger.org
keeps a running list of all of the efforts to pass the Children’s Product Safety Act in each state to help keep parents informed on what is being done on a local level to keep their children as safe as possible.
Children’s product safety is a national, even an international concern. The most effective changes in safety must come in the national arena. A strong U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), with the power and funding to oversee product safety, is critical. KID encourages policy makers to consider ways to improve recall effectiveness. However, the root of the problem is inadequately tested products that reach the market before their safety is assured. Until pre-market safety testing is mandated, our children will continue to serve as guinea pigs.
If you would like to get involved, KidsInDanger.org provides you with information and tools to help you get in touch with policy makers on such important issues.