Safety an Important Factor in Pricing Auto Owners Insurance

Drivers in a growing number of states are required to ensure that their children are properly buckled up - an action that can impact their family's safety as well as their auto owners insurance prices.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Texas recently became the 24th state to require children aged 7 and under to be in a child passenger restraint system. The Texas law is said to apply to children aged 4 and under.

The organization notes that all states now have mandatory safety belt laws for children, in various forms. However, in many states these laws apply to front seat occupants only. The laws in 29 states, plus the District of Columbia, are said to allow police to pull a driver over for failing to wear a safety belt.

Elsewhere, police are limited by secondary enforcement policies, meaning they must have another reason to pull someone over before they can be fined for a seatbelt violation.

Drivers may also be interested to know that 16 states have laws that can result in a crash victim collecting lower damages if they were not wearing a seatbelt.

The organization emphasizes that there is a difference between child restraint laws, which generally apply to young children, and seat belt laws, which apply more to adults and adolescents. Running afoul of either such law in most states can result in higher auto owners insurance premiums and other fines.

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