Safety Laws

I am not against safety laws, but I am annoyed when, from my perspective, companies lobby more in favor of profits than actual safety. PA State law requires children under 4 years of age to sit in a child car seat. From ages 4-8, children still need to be in a booster. My niece is soon 7 and can't fit in the boosters anymore. She is quite big enough to use just a seat belt, but according to the law, my brother is required to buy a seat big enough for her to sit up on.

I had to reorient my thinking when returning from overseas where we fit our whole family on a tiny 90 cc Honda motorbike.

And years ago cars didn't even have seatbelts. When we were discharged from the hospital recently with our new baby, the lady (who herself was at least 60 years old) had to let us know that the car seat we were using was "old" and the newer ones have better safety features. Ours is only a few years old, borrowed from a friend. It sounded like she was talking about a computer ... they age quickly, I know. But a big piece of plastic without a brain can hardly be said to age in the same way, in my opinion. No, it is the laws that change, requiring the seats and who needs to sit in them to change. And the more the companies lobby that these seats are needed for bigger kids, the more money they will make!

And the most ironic thing of all in the state of PA is that there are more obvious dangers of riding a motorcycle without a helmet, yet, the helmet safefy feature has now been deemed a choice ... I guess the lobbyists for the helmet companies didn't work as hard.