MISSOURI STRENGTHENS ITS CHILD-SAFETY SEAT LAW

When it comes to car seats, Lisa Campbell doesn't leave home without them.

The Cape Girardeau mother makes sure her son, Jacob, 18 months, and her daughter, Jenna, 3, are firmly in their car seats before she hauls them anywhere.

"I can't drive if they are not in their car seats," said Campbell, who applauds Missouri's new child-safety-seat law.

On Aug. 28, Missouri began requiring children younger than 4 to ride in a child-safety seat.

The old law required safety seats only for a child riding in the front seat. Only a seat belt was required for a child younger than 4 riding in the back.

Campbell said Tuesday she didn't know her personal safety-seat rules had been stricter than the old law and, in one respect, are still stricter than the new law. She won't let her children ride in the front seat, even when buckled in a car seat.

"I don't want them in the front seat at all because it just seems too easy to go through the windshield," she said.

But she admitted that her husband, Mike, and other relatives aren't always as strict when it comes to transporting her daughter.

Campbell said some of her daughter's friends are 5 and just use seat belts. But Campbell said she plans to keep her children in car seats as long as she can.

Campbell said her daughter has a better view from the car windows from the child-safety seat.

While a strong advocate of car seats, Campbell wasn't aware the law had changed.

She isn't alone. Local day-care operators say many parents aren't aware of the new law.

The new law has cut down drastically on field trips for 3 year olds at KinderCare in Cape Girardeau.

The day-care center used to take its 3 year olds on weekly trips to the library, as well as on other outings.

But such regular trips are no longer practical because instead of buckling the children with regular seat belts, the youngsters must be placed in child-safety seats, KinderCare Director Kaye Hamblin said.

She said the center hopes to continue offering some special trips, such as a visit to West Park Mall to see Santa.

But to do so, the center must depend on parents to bring car seats and then those seats must be buckled into the KinderCare van, no small task when talking about a dozen or more children, Hamblin said.

Still, she is solidly behind the stricter law. "I certainly think that it is much safer."

Hamblin said her 3-year-old granddaughter was in a traffic accident last year. "She was in a child-safety seat and she wasn't hurt at all."

"I support the law and I think it is great and I think it is a good thing," she said, but "it does impact on us in that we have to tell the kids, `We can't take you on field trips.'"

Cathy Clark, co-owner of Small World Pre-School in Cape Girardeau, said the center doesn't take 3 year olds on field trips. "We start all field trips at age 4," she said.

Small World has a 15-passenger van, but Clark said the center has always felt that 3 year olds are too young to be hauled around strapped just in seat belts.

Seventeen children younger than 4 died in motor vehicle accidents last year in Missouri. None was in a car seat.

Sgt. Carl Kinnison of the Cape Girardeau Police Department said officers will stop motorists if they suspect children aren't being properly restrained.

"Most of the officers are going to give a warning first," Kinnison said.

Unlike the seat-belt measure, the child-safety-seat law is a primary law. Police won't stop motorists solely for a seat-belt violation, but they will stop motorists in cases of child-safety-seat violations, Kinnison said. Violators face a $25 fine and court costs.