11.3 Seat Belts and Child Safety Restraints

11.3 Seat Belts and Child Safety Restraints

Quick Answer: Seat belts and child safety restraints save thousands of lives each year. Worn belts for drivers and front-seat passengers increase the chance of survival 45 percent and cut the risk of serious injury 50 percent. Indiana law requires a driver and all passengers to use seat belts at all times when a vehicle is in operation. Bus operators are also required to use a seat belt. Use the belt even with air bags — air bags work in tandem with belts, and failure to belt could result in air-bag injury. Wear the belt low on the hips and flat across the collarbone. The driver should sit at least 12 inches from the steering wheel. Head restraints should sit higher than the top of the head and as close as possible to the back of the head. Passengers younger than eight must be properly secured in a child restraint system (car seat or booster). If there is a passenger-side air bag, the National Safety Council recommends children younger than 12 in the back seat. Exemptions are a named official list, not "I am only going two blocks."

Occupant protection sits in Indiana Driver's Manual Chapter 7. Chapter 1 restates the public-safety rule: occupants of a vehicle equipped with a manufacturer-installed seat belt must wear it any time the motor vehicle is in motion. On the driving skills exam, failure to use a seat belt is an automatic fail. Knowledge-exam items will ask who must buckle, how to sit with an air bag, the under-eight child-restraint age, and whether an exemption actually appears on the handbook list.

Why belts matter — and why air bags do not replace them

Seat belts and child safety restraints, such as car seats, save thousands of lives each year and improve the chance of surviving a crash. When worn, seat belts for drivers and front-seat passengers increase the chance of survival by 45 percent and cut the risk of serious injury by 50 percent. Those two percentages are the exam numbers. Do not invent "belts only help on the highway" or "air bags made belts optional."

Indiana law requires a driver and all passengers to use seat belts at all times when a vehicle is in operation. That is every occupant, not "just the driver," not "just the front seat," and not "only people under 18." Operators of buses are also required to use a seat belt. A short neighborhood trip, a full back seat of friends, and a city bus driver's compartment are all in-operation situations.

A seat belt must be used even in a vehicle with one or more air bags. Air bags are designed to work in tandem with seat belts to slow occupants in a collision. Failure to use a seat belt could result in injury from the air bag. Sitting unbelted so the bag "has room to work" is the reverse of the design. The bag is an extra restraint, not a substitute lap-and-shoulder belt.

How to sit: hips, collarbone, 12 inches, head restraint

To maximize safety:

• Everyone should wear seat belts low on the hips and flat across the collarbone.
• The driver should sit at least 12 inches away from the steering wheel.
• Head restraints should be positioned higher than the top of the head and as close as possible to the back of an individual's head.

A belt on the belly or under the arm does not do the job the 45%/50% figures describe. Sitting six inches from the wheel so you can "reach better" puts you in the air bag's explosive path. A head restraint dropped to ear level to "see better" is in the wrong place; it belongs above the top of the head and close to the skull, not as a loose pillow an inch below the rearview mirror.

The explosive power of air bags has killed children and elderly adults less than five feet tall. That is why passenger-air-bag seating rules for small occupants are not optional courtesy — they are crash physics. The legal child-restraint age and the National Safety Council seating recommendation are different numbers; learn both.

Child restraints: younger than eight by law; younger than 12 in back by NSC

Passengers younger than eight years of age are required by law to be properly secured in a child restraint system such as a child car seat or booster seat. Younger than four, younger than six, or "until they look big enough" are not the Indiana statute the manual states. Younger than eight is the number.

If a car is equipped with an air bag on the passenger side, the National Safety Council recommends putting children younger than 12 years of age in the back seat. That younger-than-12 back-seat figure is an NSC recommendation tied to passenger air bags. It is not Indiana's legal child-restraint age. A 10-year-old who has outgrown the under-eight car-seat/booster requirement still belongs in the back when a passenger air bag is present, per NSC. Do not answer a law question with 12, and do not answer an NSC / passenger air bag question with eight as if they were the same rule.

A child who must be in a child restraint is also on the seat-belt exemption list below — not because the child rides loose, but because the child restraint, not the adult belt alone, is the required system.

Seat-belt exemptions are a named list

The following are examples of when seat belts are not required. If the situation is not on this list, buckle.

• Drivers or passengers who should not wear a seat belt for medical reasons, provided they have written documentation of the medical reasons from a physician
• A child who is required to be restrained by a child restraint system
• Traveling in a commercial or United States Postal Service vehicle that makes frequent stops for pickup or delivery of goods and services
• A rural carrier of the United States Postal Service operating a vehicle while serving a rural postal route
• A newspaper motor route carrier or newspaper bundle hauler who stops to make deliveries from a vehicle
• A BMV driver examiner designated and appointed by the BMV who is conducting an examination of an applicant for a learner's permit or driver's license
• An occupant of a farm truck being used on a farm in connection with usual and normal agricultural pursuits
• An occupant of a motor vehicle participating in a parade
• An occupant of the living quarters area of a recreational vehicle
• An occupant of the treatment area of an ambulance
• An occupant of the sleeping area of a tractor trailer
• An occupant, other than the operator, of a municipal waste collection and transportation vehicle
• An occupant, other than the operator, of a truck on a construction site
• A passenger, other than the operator, in the cab of a recovery vehicle, being transported because that passenger's vehicle is being towed
• An occupant, other than the operator, of a motor vehicle being used by a public utility in an emergency

Notice how many of those exemptions are other than the operator. The driver of the garbage truck, construction truck, recovery wrecker, or public-utility emergency vehicle is not excused just because a rider in the back is. A farm-truck exemption is on a farm in usual agricultural work, not the drive into town for groceries. A medical exemption needs written physician documentation, not a verbal "my back hurts." A parade occupant is in a parade, not circling the block after the parade ends. "We are only going to the corner store" is not on the list.

Indiana scenarios

I-465 carpool. Four adults and a seven-year-old. Every occupant must be restrained while the vehicle is in operation. The seven-year-old is younger than eight and must be in a car seat or booster, not an adult belt used loosely. The driver sits at least 12 inches from the wheel with the belt low on the hips and flat across the collarbone.

Passenger air bag, 10-year-old. The child is past the under-eight legal restraint age. If the car has a passenger-side air bag, NSC still wants that child in the back seat. Putting a small child in the front because "the belt fits now" ignores the air-bag killing power the manual describes for children and for elderly adults under five feet tall.

Skills exam in Fort Wayne. Forgetting the belt is not a minor deduction. Failure to use a seat belt is an automatic fail of the driving skills exam.

Rural route versus grocery run. A USPS rural carrier serving the route, or a newspaper bundle hauler stopping for deliveries, can fit an exemption. The same person driving the family car to a game does not. A construction-site passenger may be exempt; the operator of that truck is not.

Exam traps

• Belting only the driver, or only the front seat.
• Skipping the belt because the vehicle has air bags.
• Sitting closer than 12 inches to the wheel, or wearing the belt on the stomach or under the arm.
• Dropping the head restraint below the top of the head.
• Using younger than 12 as Indiana's legal child-restraint age (the law is younger than eight; 12 is the NSC back-seat recommendation with a passenger air bag).
• Using younger than four or another state's booster cutoff.
• Inventing a "short trip" or "back-seat adult" exemption.
• Applying a passenger-only work exemption to the operator.
• Forgetting that no seat belt is an automatic skills-exam fail.

Everyone belts when the vehicle is in operation, children younger than eight ride in a child restraint, sit 12 inches from the wheel, and put children younger than 12 in the back when a passenger air bag is present.