Car seats should be easy: Buy one. Install it in your car. When your kids gets too big, move them into the next size seat.
But, New Jersey parents know it’s not that simple. The Garden State has one of toughest car seat laws in the nation, with complex rules and steep fines for families that fail to strap their children into the right seats.
The state’s revised seatbelt law, which went into effect in 2015, has led to thousands of tickets handed out to drivers in cars where children were either unbuckled or sitting in the wrong type of car seat, according to state data.
Is your kid in the right seat? When can you turn rear-facing car seats around? When can kids move to a booster or sit in the front seat?
Here’s what you need to know about New Jersey’s law:
A child under age 2 and under 30 lbs. must be in a rear-facing car seat with a five-point harness, according to state law.
Many other states say you can turn your child’s seat around to be front-facing at age 1. But, New Jersey’s law was rewritten in 2015 to say kids must stay rear-facing until age 2 because data says young children are far less likely to die in accidents if they face the back of the vehicle.
Yes, that means toddlers under 2 who are tall or have long legs must remain rear-facing in New Jersey even if their knees are bent and their feet are pressed against the back seat of the car, state officials say.
A child under age 4 and 40 lbs. must remain in either a rear-facing or a forward-facing car seat with a five-point harness in the back seat of a vehicle.
No, New Jersey law does not allow kids under age 4 to move to booster seats or car seats that use only the car’s shoulder belts. Until age 4 and 40 lbs., they are required to stay in car seats with a five-point harness.
A child under age 8 and 57 inches should stay in a car seat until they reach the upper limits of the car seat’s capacity, according to the law. Then, they can move to a booster seat with a regular seat belt.
So, if a tall kid is 58 inches tall, but still 7 years old, he or she can move to an adult seat belt under New Jersey’s law. If a kid has turned 8, he or she can also move to a regular adult seat belt, no matter what the child weighs, state officials said.
New Jersey’s law does not specify when children age 8 or older can move from the back seat to the front seat. However, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children not sit in the front seat until age 13.
In the year after New Jersey enacted its new car seat rules in 2015, police handed out 6,257 tickets related to children under age 8 who were either unbuckled or in the wrong car seat or booster seat, according to state data.
Fines for violating the car seat law range from $50 to $75. Tickets are issued to the driver of the car. New Jersey’s law does not say how police would verify the age, height or weight of a child when issuing a ticket.
If you drive a pick-up truck, sports car or other vehicle with no back seat, a child can ride in the front seat in a car seat or a booster seat. But New Jersey’s law says the vehicle’s passenger-side airbag must be disabled or shut off if a baby or toddler is using a rear-facing car seat. The force of air bags can injure small children if they deploy.
New Jersey’s law makes no exceptions for taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, limos or any other passenger vehicles that have seat belts. Children are still required to use the same type of car seats the law requires they use in their family’s car.
No, school buses are exempt from the car seat law in New Jersey.
However, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law in 2018 that requires all school buses to install shoulder and lap belts for children. The law was passed in response to a school bus crash on Route 80 that killed two people and injured dozens of others on a field trip to Waterloo Village.
Though the new school bus law requires three-point seat belts, it does not require the same car seats and booster seats children are required to use in passenger cars.
Every county in New Jersey has one or more child safety seat checkpoints where parents and caregivers can get free help determining which seat they need, how to install it and how to adjust it to fit their child. A schedule is posted on the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety website, though most one-on-one inspections are suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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