Child car seat laws in Montana are now a little more robust following House Bill 586 being signed into law by Gov. Greg Gianforte.
Most seat belt laws are left to states, and Montana passed its first legislation on the topic in 1987.
Laws regarding child passenger protection have only been updated three times in the past 25 years, the Daily Montanan reports.
Rep. Marc Lee, a Butte Democrat, brought the bill, which sought to tighten standards to increase safety for small children riding in cars. It had significant bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.
Lee has been a Butte firefighter for three decades, is a certified instructor on car safety for kids and teaches first responders and nurses proper child vehicle restraint practices.
“While teaching these classes to the groups I mentioned, we as instructors used to half-heartedly joke about how weak Montana’s laws are when it comes to child passenger safety,” Lee said during a House Transportation Hearing on the bill. He said the realization spurred him to sponsor the bill. The legislation adds definitions for booster seats, child safety restraint systems and “properly restrained.”
Prior to the change, the law’s only guidance was that children under age 6 and 60 pounds “must be transported and properly restrained in a child safety restraint.”
The new law axes that requirement and replaces it with standards for different ages.
Lee said the old law lacked “detail” and that it did not put children in the “safest possible position” for travel. It also requires car seats to meet federal motor vehicle safety standards.
Passengers under 2 years of age must be in a rear-facing seat and properly restrained. Children aged from 2 to 4 must be in a rear-facing seat or a forward-facing seat with an internal harness.
Kids aged 4 to 8 must be properly restrained in a forward-facing car seat with an internal harness or utilize a booster seat to safely use the car’s shoulder seat belt.
Lastly, there’s guidance for children aging out of booster seats:
“A motor vehicle passenger who is at least 9 years of age or has outgrown the height or weight limits of a child booster seat as set by the manufacturer, whichever comes first, must be secured with a motor vehicle adult safety belt.”
Wendy Olson Hansen, who has been a certified child passenger safety technician for 25 years, said during the hearing that about 71% of the checks they have show proper usage of car seats.
In the past, she said, there was a time when about 90% of people were incorrectly using car seats.
“We’ve made improvement,” Hansen said. “We’d like to continue to see more improvement.”
In 2022, the United States averaged about three child deaths caused by car crashes per day. That year, there were more than 42,000 vehicle crash deaths — almost 1,200 of those were kids. Montana’s fatality rate for car crashes is also often above the national average.
The law did not change any penalties.
“This wasn’t designed to be a law enforcement bill whatsoever,” Lee said during the House hearing. “We did not change any of the fines. We did not make it a graduated fine schedule or anything along those lines. We truly just want to make this a child protection bill.”
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