Thread: Minimum age to ride in the front seat in New York State?

Question: What is the minimum age to ride in the front seat in New York State?

Answer: The absolute bare minimum age is 13 in the front seat. The airbag (if you have one) deploys at 240 mph. That could be fatal to a child 12 and under or that child could be seriously injured. The best thing to do is to have a child in the backseat in a harnessed car seat or booster until they are 4'9", then restrained in a seat belt in the backseat for as long as possible. If you do not have an airbag, since 95% of accidents are frontal or side impact, you are actually moving your child closer to the impact by moving them from the backseat to the front seat.

I was just wondering about the laws. I moved my youngest from a car seat to a booster seat because she out grew the car seat and was wondering if she legally can be in just a booster now. She's so tall, I thought it went by height/weight for the booster seats allowed. I have her in the booster anyway but have been meaning to look up the NY law for it to see if I really should do that. My older one went from a car seat to a middle seat instead of right to a booster but I haven't had the time or memory to look up the law :-)

we were at a car seat check about 3 years back. They told us the min. age/weight for booster seats was 4 years OR 40lbs.
They no longer need to be in a booster seat when their feet can be firmly planted on the floor while their back is straight and up against the back of the seat. This was when the booster age increased to 6 years old. Eddie had just turned 6. The car seat checkers told us he didn't need to be in a booster seat because he was so tall.
http://www.health.state.ny.us/publications/3090.pdf

Ray - does your pickup have a back seat? I believe trucks have different rules... if it's a single bench, for example, you can have younger kids in the front (versus putting them in the bed of the truck & telling them to "hang on!")

True 4 door super cab.

They spend much more time in the Hyundai Elantra though.

-Raymond

Originally Posted by Rebecky

we were at a car seat check about 3 years back. They told us the min. age/weight for booster seats was 4 years OR 40lbs.
They no longer need to be in a booster seat when their feet can be firmly planted on the floor while their back is straight and up against the back of the seat. This was when the booster age increased to 6 years old. Eddie had just turned 6. The car seat checkers told us he didn't need to be in a booster seat because he was so tall.
http://www.health.state.ny.us/publications/3090.pdf

Thanks so much...and luckily that makes my youngest legal! Can;t imagine trying to get her into a car seat again, she'd not be too happy about that!

Originally Posted by esnagel

Ray - does your pickup have a back seat? I believe trucks have different rules... if it's a single bench, for example, you can have younger kids in the front (versus putting them in the bed of the truck & telling them to "hang on!")

don't forget . . . the rules also change based on weather conditions. When it starts raining (or snowing) and you DON'T have a cap or tonneau cover you should probbaly let the kids ride up front . . .

Wow, can't believe I didn't see this when originally posted. Are there still morons out there that let their kids ride in the back of an open truck bed?????

In California the minimum age for kids riding in the front seat is 12 years old.

Originally Posted by THERESA

Wow, can't believe I didn't see this when originally posted. Are there still morons out there that let their kids ride in the back of an open truck bed?????

I used to love riding in the back of a pick-up ... !!! Wee ... yah ... !!! Hang on for your life ... !!!

I remember the days when cars were still sold without seatbelts. My parents made us wear our seat belts, but didn't always check. Most people I knew did not wear their seat belts.

I wish that I had been wearing my seat belt when I got hit by a car that ran a stop sign in the summer of 1984. That event changed my life forever. I now suffer from serious back trouble (four or five damaged vertabrae) from not wearing my seat belt ....