Washington is the first state in the nation to pass a booster-seat law. The seats, used after a child outgrows a car seat, are designed to keep the lap belt across their laps, instead of their stomachs. Children buckled up without a booster seat tend to slump down so the lap belt slides over their stomachs. In a crash, the belt will cut into a child's stomach, causing broken vertebrae, burst intestines and ruptured stomachs. Medical experts testified that the scientific consensus was that children should use booster seats until they're 8 years old or 80 pounds.
Lawmakers say they'll revisit the requirement next session.
The law is intended to be educational, not punitive, Skeen said, and requiring booster seats is a public health issue, not a parental rights issue. We kept getting all this parental rights stuff. One woman called her and suggested she was just trying to alleviate her guilt for the death of her son. There's no absolution for me. What I would really have felt guilty about is if I had just taken my grief and sat at home and not tried to save some other poor mother from this.