Let my children go!

Then there are the issues of the fairness of booster seat laws and their enforcement. It is certainly easier for a wealthy family to comply with these laws, whether by buying more car seats or by purchasing an SUV or minivan with three rows of seating to accommodate children and their play dates.

Last year, the Big 3 American automakers pledged almost $50 million in car seat education and giveaway programs, but the cost of a booster seat (anywhere from $25 to $100) is not the primary problem for a low-income family. The main problem is that most cars built before 1990 (34 percent of cars on the road) have only lap belts in the back seat, an arrangement that works for just two models of booster seat (the Fisher Price Futura 20/60 and the Britax Laptop), both of which are nearly impossible to find in stores.

The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents in this predicament to "check with your dealer or manufacturer to see if shoulder harnesses can be installed ... Another thing you can do is buy another car with lap/shoulder belts in the back seat." These are of course the best choices if money is no object, but they glide right over the real-life predicament of many families. Buying another car or retrofitting seat belts is not an option when even the cost of another car seat is daunting.

People who don't own cars, an invisible population in auto safety discussions, are going to be forced to buy and carry booster seats around if they want anyone to give their 5-year-old child a ride without breaking the law. Our babysitter got a $300 ticket for allowing a friend without a child or car seat to give her and her son a lift to church.

An even greater issue is how the law is enforced. Expanding the ages that children must sit in car seats vastly expands the number of vehicles that police are authorized to stop. In California, the police have what's called primary authority to stop cars for seat belt violations, meaning they don't have to pull you over for another violation first to notice that you aren't wearing your seat belt. So the police may stop your car if they suspect that the small 7-year-old wearing a shoulder belt is in fact only 5 and should be in a booster. Or they may stop you for any reason they want, and use that newly expanded power as a pretext.

Perhaps I could accept the law more gracefully if using a booster seat were really the best action I could take to improve my child's safety while traveling. In fact, there are several other choices I could make that would improve his safety more, but these are never going to make it into law.

For example, we could all drive less. A driver has the same risk of dying over 100 miles with a seat belt on as driving 58 miles without it. My child's life would be far safer if I drove even 20 percent less than I do now. Buses, trains and subways are all statistically safer ways to travel than cars, even though most of these vehicles don't accommodate child safety seats of any kind.

Most parents would probably choose to use booster seats after learning about how poorly regular-size seat belts protect small bodies. The horrifying stories I read of internal injuries caused to 7-year-olds by lap belts or shoulder belts tucked behind the back shocked me into wanting to buy a booster seat on the spot. But I want to decide. I want to be able to use the booster seat for my routine trips but to use a seat belt alone if that would allow all of us to ride together instead of taking two cars. In our embrace of regulation and legislation, what's lost is the knowledge that it's my responsibility to assess the risks my family and I face every day, and take them as I choose.

These are uncomfortable conversations to have, and they shouldn't be. We pass laws and promote regulations in a hushed atmosphere where no discussion is possible. Every time a child dies in a car accident it's a terrible tragedy, and we need to change how we view risk. We seem to believe that we can insulate our children from all risk if we only buy enough equipment, pass enough laws and punish people who don't follow them.

We'd all be better off if this passion for legislation and enforcement was directed into pressuring car manufacturers to make universal, meaningful design changes -- things like adjustable-height shoulder belts in all seating positions and booster seats as integral, foldout options on all cars. I don't want my child growing up in a panic about safety. I want to raise my child to be aware of but not petrified by the hazards that exist. I want to raise him with a sense of autonomy and self-reliance, and a realistic, graceful understanding that his world is really very safe.

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