This. This is definitely part of the problem. I can't even offer to take my kid & his friends anywhere, other than walk to the park after they're deposited at my house, because every one of them needs a car seat.

Whoa what?? I had no idea about this.

While well intentioned, car seat laws have gotten a bit insane. Minnesota recently implemented some pretty nonsensical ones that are dependent on if they've outgrown their seat.

How are cops supposed to know if they outgrew their seat? It also means that when they move to forward facing or a booster seat depends on the car seat you bought, not their height, (only their) age, or weight.

For older kids, here's the new rule: "A child at least 9 years old or has outgrown their booster seat AND the child can pass the "5 step test" may be restrained by a regular seatbelt, but they must be in a the back seat if possible under 13."

That's not too bad because they at least have a set age, but you still can't expect a parent to have a set of 4 booster seats ready to go to haul your kids friend's around.

As an addendum, my wife just messaged me about getting our daughter a worse child seat because ours is rated for 50 pounds. In Minnesota's new laws that means she needs to be rear facing until she's 50 pounds. She's a few months away from being 4 years old and she's 33 pounds or so. Her legs are getting incredibly scrunched up and we can't extend her leg room even though our car seat is made for that because there simply isn't room in our car to do so. I saw comments on a Facebook post about it from our county that someone's 7 year old was going to need to go back to rear-facing.

I think a lot of this should have fallen back to liability setting in the laws, then? I feel safe saying cops should not be ticketing people for kids being in the seat wrong. However, I can see your rates going up if you are found to be in violation of some of these rules during an accident?

Sucks, as this isn't as easy as saying it will be your responsibility and fault if the kid is injured. Odds are high this will just make a bad situation worse.

I definitely feel a bit lucky that my kids were big enough to be out of car seats by elementary school, already. That said, I thought most were out of needing car seats by the second or third grade? I'm surprised to hear it is at all common for kids to still be in seats all the way to middle school.

I also can't offer much of a defense of car seats. Obviously, go for safety; but it does feel that people are chasing a tail end of safety that is not really measurable. Modern cars and using seat belts have come a long long way to make vehicles safer.

There is also the interesting contrast with busses on this. Kids don't buckle up or use seat belts in school busses.

School buses have inertia on their side

Also, as an SF parent: I drool over the idea of school buses—prop 13 has basically eliminated them