Booster seat concerns

A bill in the Texas Legislature that will raise the age and height limits for children who must ride in a booster seat is Gov. Rick Perry's signature away from becoming the law. Some parents in Odessa, however, were wondering if the law will do anything other than put an added expense on families.

The bill, which passed the House and Senate and was sent to Perry's desk last week, requires parents to put their children in booster seats if they're shorter than 4 feet, 9 inches tall and younger than 8. Currently, children older than 5 or taller than 3 feet do not legally have to sit in such a seat. The bill also calls for a part of the fines to go to a fund so that the Texas Department of Transportation can give away some seats to low-income families.

Kathy Koepp, the outgoing president of the Ector County Independent School District's Council of Parent Teacher Associations, thought "it'd probably be a good thing" for the new law to kick in.

"Anything that makes our kids safer is good," she said. "The hard part would be how to enforce it."

If Perry signs it, the law would go into effect Sept. 1.

Sonii and Gabriel Gonzales called the law "ridiculous." Sonii put their 4-year-old son Jacob in one of the child safety seats in her car and pointed to the belt, which went over his neck. Jacob, who has a growth hormonal disorder, is already 4 feet tall.

"There has to be a safer alternative," Sonii said.

Other parents balked at the cost of the seats. Backless booster seats typically go for $25 over the Internet, while seats with backs typically cost no less than $45, with many going for about $80 or more off the local store shelves.

The affordability is what got Adriana Vasquez concerned. She said if families had several children who all had to legally wear the seats, they would need bigger cars to fit them all in as well as the extra seats and some can't afford it. She had a seat already for her 6-year-old daughter, who was about 4 feet tall, and she says she uses it sometimes for longer trips, but she still opposed the pending legislation.

Johnie Eads, a grandmother of seven and a great-grandmother to two, said she thought it would only hurt poor families who need to buy the seats, and she had a neighbor worried about the law who she said was struggling enough with bills without having to buy a new seat.

Eads also thought police should instead worry about the traffic.

"If you started enforcing the speed laws you won't have to worry about the car seat laws," she said.