New state law is impractical at best

In recent years, the Pennsylvania Legislature has been making it harder and harder to be a… In recent years, the Pennsylvania Legislature has been making it harder and harder to be a kid. First of all, it began requiring that 16-year-olds drive with a permit for six months before getting a license. Then, it instituted strict curfews for minors, forcing most high school students to be home by 11 p.m. on weekends. Now, they’ve gone after the extra-young – beginning on Feb. 21, 7-year-olds will be required to use car seats.

Previously, state law dictated that car seats were required for all children 3 years of age and younger. That law was reasonable. It’s true that 3-year-olds are growing fast and developing a basic sense of independence – in other words, a stern distaste for things like car seats – but they are still too small to rely on a seatbelt to protect them in an accident. Car seats not only keep them still, they keep them safe.

But for a 7-year-old, a car seat is an unnecessary slap in the face. When you’re 7, you’re anxious to be treated like an adult and you abhor the notion of showing up to your little league game firmly strapped into a kiddie seat, especially if you’re car pooling and all your buddies have to be strapped in too. It’s bad enough that your peers always call you “kid” and the women at the bank insist on offering you lollipops, but now the state government has made it illegal for you to put your infant days behind you.

This is not to say that kids should be able to run free and endanger themselves, but that this law amounts to little more than further empowerment for overprotective mothers bent on embarrassing their children.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has taken a different angle on the story, interviewing cab drivers who strongly object to the new law because it makes picking up people with children difficult if not impossible. Trunk space is reserved for luggage, passenger seats are obviously reversed for passengers, and there is no room to store car seats. Previously, the law didn’t pose a problem because parents with 2- or 3-year-old children generally use strollers that convert into car seats. But 6- and 7-year-olds don’t use strollers, and they certainly don’t carry car seats around all day.

This new law seems to have been designed by a group of people who don’t have children. If they did, they would have at least considered the problem of car seats and taxicabs, not to mention carpooling or the simple fact that 7-year-olds are a little too big for car seats and far too resourceful – 3-year-olds may have a hard time escaping, but their older siblings won’t. This law will frequently go unheeded, and rightly so, because a child’s resolve is greater than a ridiculous law.