Seat Belts, Child Restraints, and Pickup-Bed Passenger Rules

Seat Belts, Child Restraints, and Pickup-Bed Passenger Rules

Quick Answer: Under 16 GCA Chapter 26 every driver and all passengers of a motor vehicle other than a motorcycle must be restrained by a federal-standard seat belt assembly. A child under 4 must be in a child passenger restraint system, and a passenger who is both under 4 feet 9 inches tall and between 4 and 11 years old must be in a booster or appropriately fitting child restraint. Passengers in a pickup bed are exempt from the belt rule only if all six statutory conditions are met - including a 14-inch enclosure, bed passengers 12 or older, and no more than 5 of them.

Why the handbook leads with this

The handbook's opening page cites studies showing that fatality rates among car occupants are reduced by between 30 and 50 percent when seat belts are worn, and NHTSA's estimate that a driver in a lap-shoulder belt has their death risk cut by 48 percent. Expect a question that simply asks for that 30-to-50 percent range.

Three stacked requirements

Motorcycles are excluded from all three. Note that Sec. 26102 is a two-part test joined by "and": a 10-year-old who is 4 feet 6 inches tall needs a booster; a 10-year-old who is 5 feet tall does not, and a properly worn seat belt satisfies the law for that child. A 3-year-old needs a child restraint no matter how tall they are.

Worked example. A driver leaves Dededo with a 2-year-old, a 7-year-old who is 4 feet 4 inches tall, a 13-year-old, and one adult. The 2-year-old must be in a child restraint under Sec. 26101. The 7-year-old is under 4 feet 9 inches and inside the 4-to-11 band, so a booster or child restraint is required under Sec. 26102. The 13-year-old and the adult wear seat belts under Sec. 26103. Every one of the four is covered by some rule - there is no "old enough that nothing applies" category.

The pickup-bed exemption: all six or none

Guam is one of the few U.S. jurisdictions that writes a lawful pickup-bed exemption into its restraint statute, and the exam tests it in detail. Under Sec. 26103(a), passengers riding in the bed of a pickup are exempt from the seat-belt requirement provided all of the following are met:

1. The bed is surrounded on all four sides by a secure vertical body extension, inclusive of a tailgate, that is at least fourteen (14) inches high.
2. All seats in the cab of the pickup are occupied by a passenger.
3. Passengers in the bed are twelve (12) years of age or older.
4. Passengers in the bed remain seated on the floor of the truck bed at all times.
5. Passengers are not leaning against the tailgate.
6. There are no more than five (5) passengers riding in the bed.

These are cumulative, not alternatives. Leave one cab seat empty and the exemption collapses for everyone in the bed. Put an 11-year-old back there and the exemption collapses. Let one person sit up on the wheel well instead of on the bed floor and the exemption collapses. The handbook adds the practical instruction that bed passengers should sit firmly on the deck against the cab, and repeats the five-passenger cap in its miscellaneous rules.

Two numbers get mixed up constantly. The enclosure must be 14 inches high; the passenger age floor is 12 years. Neither figure controls the other.

Statutory exemptions from the restraint rules

Sec. 26104 lists the only circumstances in which a driver is not in violation of Sec. 26101, 26102, or 26103:

• The vehicle is participating in the annual Liberation Day parade and is not exceeding 10 mph.
• The unrestrained person has a medical condition that prevents appropriate restraint, certified by a physician who states the nature of the condition and why a restraint would be impractical or harmful. The physician's statement must be in that person's possession.
• The unrestrained person is a passenger in an emergency vehicle (on-duty official ambulance, firefighting, rescue, or law enforcement vehicle), a passenger transport vehicle (gross vehicle weight rating over 10,000 pounds, or labeled by the manufacturer as any type of bus, or classified or bus-plated by DRT), or a taxicab (for-hire vehicle under 10,000 pounds GVWR).
• The vehicle was manufactured before January 1, 1967.

Note that the Liberation Day exemption is capped by a speed, the medical exemption requires the paperwork to be carried, and the taxi and bus exemptions turn on weight ratings rather than on what the vehicle looks like.

Fines

Section 26107 is the sleeper. Speed with four people legally riding in the bed of a properly enclosed truck and you owe $400 on top of the speeding fine, even though the bed passengers themselves were within the exemption.

Because the restraint fines are "per violation," a driver carrying two unrestrained children can be fined twice.

Riding where you should not

The handbook makes it unlawful for anyone to ride on any part of a vehicle that is not intended for the use of passengers, such as the hood or other outside parts of the vehicle. That rule is separate from the pickup-bed exemption: the bed is a permitted location under the six conditions, while the hood, roof, running boards, and tailgate never are.

The HSD license notation

Any resident of Guam who is deaf, hearing-impaired, or speech-impaired may apply to the Department of Revenue and Taxation to have the notation "HSD" placed on their driver's license or Guam Identification Card. The applicant must submit medical proof of the deafness or the hearing or speech impairment. The notation alerts an officer at a traffic stop that spoken commands may not be heard, which is why it sits in the handbook next to the restraint and accessible-parking material rather than in the licensing chapter.