|
| |
|
|
|
Upgrading Seat Belt Legislation for Children and Teens
|
|
|
To All Iowans Concerned about the health of Children
and Teens,
I want to give you an update regarding the seat belt bill presently in
the Iowa Legislature and to again ask for your help in getting it
passed. The original bills which contained articles that enhanced Iowa's
graduated driver's licensing program as well as the seatbelt initiative
died in the Transportation committees of both Houses. However, the
co-chairs of the Senate Transportation committee (Senators Matt McCoy
and John Putney) sponsored another bill that enhances some of the
driver’s educational requirements for our state and, fortunately, also
includes the seatbelt initiative. The seatbelt clause would require
children 11 years through 17 to use a seatbelt regardless of seating
position, basically closing the gap that allows children to ride without
a seatbelt if they are in the back seat of the vehicle. This bill has
passed the Senate Transportation committee and is now before the full
Senate. The new assigned number for this bill is Senate File 2346 (SF2346).
I have included an attachment of the whole bill as well as a seatbelt
fact sheet.
We have until March 24th to get this bill out of the Senate and then
passed before through the House Transportation committee. That is not a
lot of time. Please contact your State Senator and ask them for their
support of SF2346. I find e-mailing works
great. It does not have to be long or complicated. An e-mail could be as
short as:
“Dear Senator ______,
Please support SF2346 and the seatbelt
requirement for children 11 through 17 years of age.
Sincerely,
Your name and address”.
You can find the e-mails of the Iowa Legislators if you go to:
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/aspx/Legislators/LegislatorInfo.aspx.
The page also directs you to a link to help find your particular
legislator if you don’t know who they are.
If you can take the time to go beyond the call of duty, it wouldn’t hurt
to e-mail every Senator and the House Transportation committee. That’s
what I did. See below for a list of the House Transportation committee.
This might be your best chance of saving a child’s life or preventing
them from having a serious injury. Thank you so much for your efforts to
help keep Iowa’s children and teens safe!
Charles Jennissen, MD
Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine
Department of Emergency Medicine
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
|
|
|
| Back to Top |
Last updated:
July 02, 2007.
| |
|
