Ohio's Booster Seat Law Is Now Enforced: What Dayton Parents Need to Know

Published April 8, 2010 · New Laws

Yesterday, April 7, 2010, Ohio's six-month grace period for the state's new booster-seat requirement ended. Since last October, officers who found a young child riding without a booster seat could only hand the driver a warning. As of this week, they can write a ticket.

If you drive children around Centerville, Kettering, Beavercreek, or anywhere else in the Miami Valley, here is what the law requires, why it exists, and one point most news coverage has skipped: how Ohio's child-restraint statute protects an injured child's legal claim if a crash does happen.

What the law requires

The booster-seat requirement was added to Ohio's child-restraint statute, R.C. 4511.81, by Sub. H.B. 320 of the 127th General Assembly, signed in January 2009. It took effect on October 7, 2009, with a warning period that ran through April 6, 2010.

The rule itself is straightforward. A child who is under 8 years old and shorter than 4 feet 9 inches must ride in a booster seat or other appropriate child restraint, secured according to the manufacturer's instructions, in any vehicle required to have seat belts. The existing requirements remain in place for younger children: a child under 4 years old or under 40 pounds must be in a child safety seat, and children from 8 through 15 must be in a child restraint or wearing a seat belt.

The point of a booster is simple physics. An adult seat belt is designed for an adult frame. On a small child, the lap belt rides up over the soft abdomen instead of the hip bones, and the shoulder belt crosses the neck or face instead of the collarbone. Children in that position are often "belted" but still badly hurt in a crash, with abdominal and spinal injuries that a booster seat prevents by lifting the child so the belt fits correctly.

How enforcement works

A first violation is a minor misdemeanor with a fine of $25 to $75. A repeat violation is a more serious misdemeanor.

Enforcement of the booster-seat provision is "secondary." Under R.C. 4511.81, an officer cannot stop a vehicle solely to check for a booster-seat violation or write a ticket for one. The driver has to have been stopped for some other reason first. As a former police officer, I would not treat that as a loophole. Officers stop drivers every day for speeding, rolling through stop signs, and equipment violations, and the booster-seat citation can be added to any of those stops.

Fines collected under the statute go into a state child highway safety fund used for education and for providing seats to families who cannot afford them. If cost is the reason a child in your family is riding without a booster, ask your pediatrician or local health department about assistance programs; a basic backless booster is inexpensive, and some are available at no cost.

The part parents are not told: how the statute protects an injured child

Here is where this becomes an injury-law topic.

Suppose a child is riding without a required booster seat, another driver runs a red light, and the child is seriously hurt. The at-fault driver's insurance company will look for any argument that reduces what it has to pay. One obvious argument is that the child's injuries were worse because the child was not properly restrained.

Ohio's statute shuts that argument down for the child. R.C. 4511.81 provides that a driver's failure to secure a child in a required restraint "is not negligence imputable to the child" and is not admissible as evidence in a civil action involving the child's rights against another person responsible for the child's injuries. In plain terms, a child's claim against the driver who caused the crash cannot be reduced, and the jury cannot even hear, that the adult in charge failed to use a booster seat.

That is the right rule. A six-year-old does not choose how she is buckled in. The law puts the responsibility on the operator of the vehicle, as it should, and it keeps the at-fault driver from benefiting from an adult's mistake.

The rule for adults is different and worth knowing. Under R.C. 4513.263, an adult's failure to wear a seat belt cannot be used as evidence of negligence or contributory negligence, but the statute does allow a jury, on proper evidence, to reduce the noneconomic portion of an adult's damages, such as pain and suffering, if the failure to buckle up contributed to the harm. We will write more about that provision another time. For now, the important contrast is that an injured child's claim is protected far more completely.

What a parent should do after a crash involving a child

Children's injury cases have features that make early legal advice especially valuable.

• Get the child evaluated even if he or she seems fine. Young children cannot always describe pain, and abdominal and spinal injuries from belt loading can be delayed.
• Document the restraint. Photograph the car seat or booster in place, keep it, and do not let it be discarded with the vehicle. If the seat failed, the manufacturer may be responsible.
• Do not give the insurer a recorded statement about how the child was restrained. The statute protects the child, but there is no reason to hand the adjuster an argument anyway.
• Understand that settlements for minors require court approval. A child's injury claim cannot be settled by a parent's signature alone; the probate court must approve it, and the money is protected for the child.
• Know the deadlines. Ohio's general two-year limitations period, which we covered in our post on Ohio's injury deadline, is paused for minors in many situations, but a parent's own claim for the child's medical expenses may not be. Ask rather than assume.

Our office handles car and truck crash cases involving children throughout the Dayton area, and we have seen too many families accept quick settlements that did not account for a child's future surgery, scarring, or developmental needs.

What this means for you

Use the booster seat. The fine is small, but the injuries the law is designed to prevent are not. And if your child has already been hurt in a crash, understand that Ohio law is on your child's side: the at-fault driver's insurer cannot use a restraint violation against the child, cannot shift blame to a six-year-old, and must answer for the full extent of the harm its driver caused.