Michigan moms and dads, are you ready for Tuesday?  Well, are you?  Or maybe more importantly, is your eight year old ready?  This coming Tuesday Michigan's fancy new booster seat regulation goes into effect and Junior had better be buckled up in a shiny new piece of vinyl or the Michigan State Police will hunt you down.  "Even at night."  Click it or ticket, kid.  You don't want to cost mom and dad $65 bucks, do you?

Oh, that's right, Lansing already has.  The Detroit News reports on the new booster seat tax:

It requires all children between ages 4 and 8 and less than 4 feet, 9 inches to be secured in a booster seat while traveling in a motor vehicle.

The current law applies only to children younger than 4, but the new law will expand the age group and impact 500,000 additional children statewide.

Little Suzy might be big for her age at five feet tall and one-hundred-twenty pounds but she doesn't turn 9 until this coming November.  Booster seat time.  But hey, on the upside, schools out for the summer so she doesn't have to worry about public ridicule for the next few months.  

I'm actually a big fan of the booster seat.  I remember rocking one myself when I was younger.  When I was, like, five.  I'm just thanking the universe that this law wasn't in effect fifteen years ago.  I'm not skinny but I am slim and I was definitely late in getting that big teen-aged growth spurt.  I may be six feet tall now but to put things into perspective, I was 5'2" after my junior year in high school.  I don't think I hit 4'9" until 8th grade.

That wouldn't have been socially awkward at all, rolling up to Riverside Junior High for the first day of 8th grade, waiting for my dad to come around the side of the van to unbuckle my booster seat?  But this isn't about things like social development and self esteem.  No, no, no.  What's important is that we tell parents how to raise their children and hit them square in the wallet to drive home our point.

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