BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: AB 2667
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: hill
VERSION: 5/6/10
Analysis by: Carrie Cornwell FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 22, 2010
SUBJECT:
Child passenger restraint systems
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires hospitals, clinics, and birthing centers,
when discharging a child, to inform the parent or the person to
whom the child is released where that person can have a child
passenger restraint system inspected and receive instruction on
its proper installation at no cost.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law prohibits a parent or guardian from transporting a
child who is six years of age or younger or who weighs less than
60 pounds in a motor vehicle unless that child is in a
federally-approved child safety seat in the rear seat of the
vehicle. When a parent or guardian is not present, then this
responsibility falls to the driver of the vehicle.
Existing law requires that each time a hospital, clinic, or
birthing center discharges a child under age six or 60 pounds to
provide and discuss information on the current law requiring
child safety seats to the person to whom the child is released.
This bill :
1.Requires that a hospital, clinic, and birthing center, when
discharging a child who is six years of age or younger or who
weighs less the 60 pounds, also to provide information on
where, at no cost, the parent or other person to whom the
child is discharged can have the child passenger restraint
AB 2667 (HILL) Page 2
system inspected and receive instruction in proper
installation.
2.Enumerates that this contact information may include the
telephone number of the local office of the California Highway
Patrol or the website for the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration's Child Safety Seat Inspection Station Locator.
3.Limits to once per child the number of times that a hospital,
clinic, or birthing center must provide information on child
passenger restraint systems to a parent or other person to
whom the child is discharged.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . According to the author, over 90 percent of parents
and caregivers believe their child safety seats are installed
correctly, but National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) research shows that three out of four parents
improperly restrain their children in vehicles, putting them
at risk for serious injury or death in a crash.
NHTSA reports that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause
of death of children 3 to 6 years of age. Many of these
deaths can be prevented through the proper use of child safety
seats. According to NTHTSA, child safety seats can reduce
fatal injury by 7l percent for infants and by 54 percent for
toddlers from ages 1 to 4 years.
The author reports that he hosted two child seat safety check
events in his district over the last year and saw first-hand
the alarming number of child safety seats that are not
installed properly. The author introduced this bill to
improve current law by notifying parents about how to obtain
free safety seat inspections for their child's safety seat.
2.Responding to the governor . In 2006 and 2007 Governor
Schwarzenegger vetoed two bills, both passed by this
committee, to implement NHTSA's recommendation to require
children up to eight years of age to ride in a booster seat.
In his veto messages the governor stated that, "?the way to
better protect our children is through education of and
compliance with existing laws, not the addition of new ones."
In his veto of the 2007 bill he concluded, "Rather than
AB 2667 (HILL) Page 3
repeatedly passing new laws in response to the age, height or
weight factors of our children and modifying legal
requirements, a better strategy is to move towards full
compliance with the laws we already have."
The author believes that this bill is consistent with the
Governor's views on informing parents about existing child car
seat laws.
3.Just once ? Existing law requires that each time a child is
discharged from a hospital, the hospital shall provide the
child's parent or other adult to whom the child is released
information on child safety seats. While most children leave
the hospital just once before age six, child safety advocates
note that as a child grows the type of child restraint system
changes dramatically and that parents should be made aware of
the requirements based on the size, weight, and age of the
child. This bill, however, deletes the requirement that
hospitals provide this information each time a child is
discharged and instead requires hospitals to provide it just
once. Because this bill therefore reduces the information on
child safety seats that parents receive, the California
Coalition for Children's Safety and Health opposes this bill
unless this provision is deleted. To address this concern, the
author or the committee may wish to amend the bill to delete
the language in the bill (Page 3, lines 13-16) that permits
hospitals to provide child safety seat information just once
per child.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 65 - 6
Appr: 16 - 0
Trans: 10 - 2
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 16, 2010)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: California Coalition for Children's Safety and
Health