Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 2018 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the use of child passenger safety seats or booster seats for children over the age of four and less than eight.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Transportation, Department of Health, Honolulu Police Department, Maui Police Department, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, The Queen's Medical Center, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Keiki Injury Prevention Coalition, Hawaii Association of Independent Schools, Good Beginnings Alliance, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, and one individual.

This measure also provides for specified exceptions for children between the ages of four and eight.

Current law requires children under the age of four to be restrained in a passenger restraint system. However, your Committee finds that this age is too low. Your Committee is moved by the testimony indicating that the proper use of child passenger restraints is the most important factor in preventing death and disability in a car crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children four through seven years of age be properly secured in an appropriate car or booster seat.

Your Committee finds that children ages four to eight are especially vulnerable to injury because they are usually too small in stature to benefit from the protection of a normal seat belt.

Your Committee has amended this measure by adding a definition for "restrained" and making clarifying amendments that have no substantive effect.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs, and Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2018, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2018, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.