Scott Fitzgerald: “late last year, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation, or TREAD Act.…”

“late last year, Congress passed the Transportation Recall Enhancement Accountability and Documentation, or TREAD Act. That new law includes a bill I authored, the Child Passenger Act of 2000, which requires the Department of Transportation to update its standards on child safety seats for infants and toddlers. Today, I rise to introduce another bill, which represents the next step in our effort to ensure that all of our Nation's children are adequately protected in motor vehicle crashes. The purpose of this bill is to encourage greater use of booster seats, and thereby reduce the number of traffic fatalities and injuries to young children. Booster seats are seat belt positioning devices that are designed to protect children who have outgrown their car seats but are still too physically small to fit properly in an adult-sized safety belt. Safety advocates have coined the term ``forgotten child'' to describe the average occupant of a passenger vehicle who is at least 4 years old, but usually less than 8 or 9 years old, and less than 4'9" tall. According to the National Highway traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, only about 6 percent of children between the ages of 4 and 8 years currently use booster seats when riding in motor vehicles.”