A proposed law that would require all children under eight to be in booster seats when riding in a vehicle has made it over its first hurdle in the Colorado Senate. The law would eliminate height and weight requirements and put in place an across the board requirement.
While the bill made it past this first hurdle, its opponents are decrying it as “nannyism.” I was just driving the other day when I saw a woman in the passenger seat of an SUV holding a toddler in her lap. The fact is, there are still people out there that think it’s perfectly safe to transport a child this way, despite the risk they are exposing them to. Frankly, I don’t understand the whole “big government/nanny state” argument.
The argument goes only as far in its logic as saying that the government shouldn’t be allowed to tell a person what to do. That’s fine as long as nothing goes wrong, but that’s not why we have laws like this. Something always goes wrong. A kid gets in an accident without one of these booster seats, and he’s going to get hurt. Vegetative state hurt. Tell me who is going to pay for his medical bills if the other driver is uninsured and if mom and dad’s insurance doesn’t cover them. Suddenly mom and dad are struggling to pay the rest of their expenses and are looking at bankruptcy. This won’t solve the kid’s expenses going forward. Oh sure, he could get disability payments from the government, but we don’t want that, do we? But the hospital and doctors are left holding the bag for the unpaid bills. And how are the hospitals and doctors supposed to pay their employees if they aren’t getting paid? Suddenly, the hospitals and doctors are faced with two choices: fire employees or raise their rates for people who can pay their bills.
What if all of this could be avoided simply by putting in place rule that lower the odds of something like that happening. Is that really such a bad idea?
Read more at the Denver Post.
Peter Mullison is a bankruptcy attorney at Colorado Bankruptcy Law Group, LLC. If you are considering Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy, schedule your free, confidential bankruptcy consultation with a Colorado bankruptcy attorney today. Our online scheduling system allows you to schedule bankruptcy consultation at a time that is convenient for you.
Colorado Bankruptcy Law Group, LLC is a personal bankruptcy firm serving clients in the greater Denver area.
photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sigsegv/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
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Thu, Mar 18, 2010
Consumer Law