Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (Photo: https://a11.asmdc.org/)
Bill to Raise Minimum Age to Sit in Car Front Seat Moves Through Assembly
AB 435 would also have height minimums for some teenagers
By Evan Symon, April 11, 2025 6:13 pm
A bill that would raise the minimum age to sit in the front seat of a car to the age of 13 continued to move forward this week despite significant opposition against it.
Assembly Bill 435, authored by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City), would starting in 2027, require a parent, legal guardian, or driver who transports a child between 10 to 13 years of age on a highway in a motor vehicle to properly secure that child in a rear seat in an appropriate child passenger restraint system, except a child or ward between 10 to 13 years of age may be acceptably restrained by a safety belt by meeting the requirements of the 5-Step test, which requires that the child or ward may be restrained by a safety belt rather than by a child passenger restraint system. The bill would require the 5-Step test to include that the child or ward is sitting all the way back against the auto seat, the knees of the child or ward bend over the edge of the auto seat, the shoulder belt snugly crosses the center of the child’s chest and shoulder, not the child’s neck, the lap belt is as low as possible and is touching the child or ward’s thighs, and the child or ward can stay seated like this for the whole trip.
In short, AB 435 would require all children younger than 10 years old, and those under 13, and shorter than 4 feet 9 inches, to sit on a booster seat. Those younger than 13 would need to sit in the backseat, as would those under the age of 16 who are shorter than 4 feet 9 inches tall. Beginning January 1st, it would also require a public or private hospital, clinic, or birthing center to discuss that information if the child is under 10 years of age.
Assemblywoman Wilson wrote the bill because of safety issues around securing children in cars, with car crashes being one of the top preventable deaths amongst children in the country.
“So the best thing to do to keep your child safe while riding in a vehicle matches what our law is,” said Wilson of the bill. It really is to take into consideration all the varying types of seats that we sit on in the car. This is about safety. This is about making sure that if something happens, you are safe, and I think that’s the key thing that we’re trying to drive home is that it is not about treating people like babies.”
Support and opposition
Some, like the California Hospital Association, have agreed with and supported the bill this session.
“Car crashes are a leading yet preventable cause of injury and death among children. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car seats and booster seats provide crucial protection for infants and children in a motor vehicle crash, yet these crashes are a top cause of death for children ages 1 to 13,” said CHA Vice President Vanessa Gonzalez in a letter.
“California hospitals play an important role in educating parents about child passenger safety, helping to ensure they have the knowledge and resources to keep their children safe. That’s why the California Hospital Association (CHA), on behalf of more than 400 hospitals and health systems, supports Assembly Bill (AB) 435 — a bill that would strengthen passenger safety laws by requiring that children remain in booster seats until at least age 10 unless they pass a safety test and raising the minimum age for front-seat passengers to 13.
“By ensuring that families receive clear guidance on child passenger safety, AB 435 will help prevent unnecessary injuries, save lives, and improve child safety across California.”
However, significant opposition formed as well. Many advocacy groups have pointed out the extreme difficulty in enforcing AB 435, especially with the advent of specialized cushions that can artificially raise the seats of drivers and passengers, as well as neighboring states having far fewer seat laws, which may lead to confusion. Many also said that this would give law enforcement another pretextual stop, which some lawmakers in California have been working on years to limit. Most critically, other states who have passed similar laws, including Minnesota, have found that enforcing the laws have proved virtually impossible and a large hassle, as a stop would have to include child age verification, passenger measurement, and other actions that take a significant amount of time that could be easily challenged in court.
As a result, voting for AB 435 has been mixed. While it passed the Assembly Transportation Committee 12-0 in March, 4 members abstained. And the looming Assembly Appropriations Committee vote that is to come in the next few weeks may prove to be even more difficult, especially when comparing the costs of enforcement to what can be brought in.
“God forbid something happens; we want our children to be safe,” added Wilson.
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CS Lewis said it best – “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
Amen!
It sums up the leftist lunacy accurately!
Election integrity bills get the boot but forcing parents to put a 13 year old in a booster seat is just fine…🤪
Brilliant response and precisely how Commiefornia democrats think and rationalize the bills they introduce.
This is completely ridiculous, of course.
But what do we expect from Asm Lori Wilson, who is the unhinged Dem legislator who authored and co-authored a string of transgender bills a couple of years ago, one of which (AB 957, now law) threatened to take children away from parents who didn’t embrace their child’s desire to change their sex.
https://www.californiafamily.org/2023/03/ca-bill-threatens-to-remove-children-from-parents-custody-of-the-trans-issue/
She also pops up as co-author of SB 107, now law, “which allows the state to take temporary emergency jurisdiction over cases in which minors are brought to CA for transgender drugs and surgeries, even by a non-parents, when these procedures are unavailable in their home state.”
(https://www.californiafamily.org/2024/10/the-alarming-expansion-of-sex-change-treatments-for-minors-in-california-hospitals/
Just two examples; I’m more than confident there are more wacko bills (now law) that have her name on them, and this woman says she cares about children’s safety?
I don’t think so! Wow.
It’s curious as to how Democrat Assemblywoman Lori Wilson got elected in the 11th Assembly District in the first place with her radical far-left politics and the fact that the population of that District is only about 13% Black? Was it with Democrat voter fraud and rigged voting machines? Are the majority of her constituents in her district clamoring for this legislation? Probably not?
BTW, that photo of her is heavily retouched because she doesn’t look like that in real life. (https://californiaglobe.com/fr/anti-slavery-constitutional-ballot-amendment-for-2026-bans-involuntary-servitude-as-punishment/)
Yup!
we seriously need the lobbyist from the car seat industry to start working for us! offer to double his salary and get him to the Capitol to advocate for sanity real quick! whoever he is, he raised the minimum age from 4 to 8, added expiration dates so no more hand-me-down carseats even within a family, and now a big jump from 8 to 13 based on zero peer-reviewed studies on the need for such a law. California lawmakers want you to believe a kid can go from sitting in a carseat to driving in 2.5 years (13 to 15 1/2)? kids in the midwest are driving at 14! Absolutely insane. this adds exponentially to the cost of raising kids. you have to get booster seats for your car, spouse’s car, grandma’s car. they expire every few years so no thrift store options. as people have fewer kids as a result of policies like this, pretty soon this lobbyist will want to raise the age to 85 just to keep his sales numbers the same as 2024’s!
I’m sure the California Hospital Association has done a lot of car crash testing to support their position. (roll eyes)
The back seat is no longer necessarily safer than the front seat, because far more safety features have been built into cars for front seat occupants.
Time for a car with NO BACK SEAT! Always wanted one, anyway: Ferrari, Corvette, Miata (just kidding), etc.
just when we all thought the CA elected body could not get any more useless and incompetent lol………
How about we focus on real issues of age and emotional maturity instead. G Gascon famously admitted that young men were not emotionally mature until around, oh, say, 25.
Maybe the legal drinking and driving age (but not at the same time lol) should reflect this new dogma in being able to be held accountable as an adult for one’s own acts ????
And how about CA becoming the national beacon of Safety Change and requiring all new cars sold in the great state to not only pass tough in house tailpipe emissions standards, but to ALSO have an integrated IID in order to save the MANY lives lost and traumatized due to DUI crimes ????? MADD certainly thinks it is an idea with huge merit.
C’mon Cali, where’s the willingness to always be first, not worst ?????