Coming Your Way...
New Car Seat Laws Protect Iowa Children
Gretchen Vigil, MD, Department of Pediatrics
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
Winter 2005

New state child restraint laws, passed in July 2004, mean that Iowa is no longer one of the worst states in the union for safe child travel. The new law mandates:

• Children 0-12 months old, and weighing less than 20 pounds, must be secured in a rear-facing child restraint system (car seat).
   
• Children 1-6 years old must be secured using a child restraint system (car seat or booster seat), not with a seat belt alone.
   
• Children 6-11 years old must be secured with either a child restraint system or a seat belt.

The new law has the potential to increase the safety of Iowa’s children, but only if child safety restraints are installed and used properly – and this happens in only about one of ten cases!  Some of the errors can put a child in real danger.

Parents should be encouraged to have a certified child passenger safety technician perform an evaluation of the child in the seat.  Car seat check-up events are one way they can do this.

For information on such events, and on child passenger safety in general:

Call 1-800-728-3367

Visit the Iowa Child Passenger Safety Network

Other useful online resources include:

• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Child Passenger Safety  Program
   
• American Academy of Pediatricians - Car Safety Seats
   

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