Comments on: If Wishes Were Fishes

By: Steve Ober

Steve Ober — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:06:35 +0000

The booster seat issue should never have even seen the light of day. Your statistics are absolutely right on.

Regarding the tobacco tax increase . . .beware of unintended effects. Tobacco products are already the leading ‘legal’ product on the black market today and this trafficking supports numerous illegal and even terrorist activities arround the world today. As the tax goes higher the incentive to buy black market tobacco will increase.

By: David

David — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:34:32 +0000

Booster seats leave the kids restrained by the same “big people seat belts” – I’m not talking about car seats with their own harnesses.

As for compelling arguments – there were none in favor of booster seats. When someone cites a study showing that booster seats show some benefit over regular seat belts I’ll listen, but claiming they are better than being unrestrained is not the same thing.

By: Claralyn Hill

Claralyn Hill — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:47:54 +0000

Thanks Becky for standing up for what’s right. I feel for young parents with so many burdensome restrictions, but enforcement of child safety laws would have been impossible with this exception. I have two booster seats in my car all the time for my grandchildren. Or I switch cars with my kids if I need to. No big deal. I feel for David, but the arguments you sited are more compelling than his. If our driving is mostly close to home, all the more reason to enforce the law uniformly. And we know our grandchildren’s little bodies are easily damaged when exposed to those big people seat belts under the wrong conditions.

By: David

David — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:10:17 +0000

It’s probably a waste of time talking about it since the bill is already dead, but why should the state mandate how long my kids are in booster seats? Those kinds of public safety issues should be a matter of public education, not criminal statute.

The statistics are nice, but misleading. We hear that 57% of accidents happen within 10 minutes of home but we are not told that probably 80% of driving occurs within 10 minutes of home. We hear that unrestrained children are 3.29 times more likely to sustain injuries than children in booster seats but why don’t we hear a comparison between children in booster seats and children in seat belts? Is it because the data does not support the idea that booster seats are noticeably safer than simply buckling the kids into a seat belt after they grow out of a full carseat?

My daughter could legally ride without a booster seat for five days before the age limit was raised last time. Now she rides without a booster because it’s impossible to fit three boosters across a bench seat without driving a Hummer or another of the largest SUV’s. I am very confident that she, in a seat belt, is at least as safe as her younger siblings in their booster seats. Only the baby, in his rear-facing infant carseat is actually safer than my other kids would be in regular seat belts. I don’t see how boosters make any kids safer than seat belts – they only make them more comfortable when they’re too short for a shoulder belt.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:17:29 +0000

Obviously smoking hurts people’s health and costs the state money, but some arguments for raising the tobacco tax irritate me. People often say that we need to tax smoking because these people are on medicaid and cost the state money. But this is in essence using the existence of a government welfare program to justify regulating our behavior (or at least taxing it). If this principle is accepted as valid it could lead to a slippery slope. What if I were both a smoker and against the welfare state. Then I get taxed to pay for welfare against my will, and then people use the existence of that program to justify taxing me more…