Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred H.B. No. 1791 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to provide a tax credit for child booster seats.

Your Committee finds that despite the efforts by the automobile industry to protect infants and toddlers from injury while traveling in an automobile, preschoolers and young children between four and eight years of age still remain at high risk. These children are often placed in standard adult-sized seat belts that were not designed for children and have the potential of causing serious injury or death.

Children who are at least four years of age but who are not yet eight years old who weigh less than eighty pounds should be secured in a booster seat. Booster seats provide the security of an infant seat but allow the child to ride comfortably while harnessed in the safety of a seat belt.

Your Committee has amended the bill by requiring all children who are between the ages of four and eight who weigh less than eighty pounds to be secured in a booster seat while traveling in an automobile. The bill was also amended to provide a $25 income tax credit to offset the purchase price of a booster seat.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1791, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1791, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.