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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Soc Sci Med. 2013 Nov 5;100:30–37. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.10.035

Table 3.

State Child Restraint Device Laws: Exemptions

Category Sub-category Variables
Characteristics of a vehicle operator Exempts non-state residents Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers non-state residents; the same for state residents (2 variables)
Exempts non-parent operators Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers non-resident operators; the same for resident operators (2 variables)
Exempts non-vehicle owners (rental vehicle operator) Yes/no binary variable (1 variable)
Characteristics of a vehicle Exempts vehicles not registered under the name of a child passenger’s parent Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles not registered under parents’ name; the same for vehicles registered under parents’ name (2 variables)
Exempts commercial passenger vehicles (such as taxies, buses, day care center vehicles, vehicles for hire) Yes/no binary variable (1 variable)
Exempts non-passenger commercial vehicles (such as trucks, delivery vehicles) Yes/no binary variable (1 variable)
Exempts vehicles that are not designed to be operated on highways (such as motorcycles, electronic personal mobility vehicles, recreational vehicles) Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles not designed to operate on highways; the same for those designed to operate on highways (2 variable)
Exempts vehicles that were originally manufactured without seat belts Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles manufactured without seatbelts; the same for those manufactured with seatbelts (2 variables)
Exempts vehicles with capacity of more than X number of passengers Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles with capacity of more than 6–8 passengers; the same for those with smaller capacity (2 variables)
Location of a vehicle (type of the road it is one) Exempts vehicles that were not registered or being operated within the state at the time Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles not registered/operated within the state; the same for those registered/operated within the state (2 variables)
Exempts vehicles that were not being operated on highways at the time Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers vehicles not on highways; the same for those on highways (2 variables)
Special circumstances that may exempt an operator or a child passenger Exempts (i) emergency vehicles, (ii) vehicles that were transporting a child to obtain emergency care, or (iii) vehicle whose operator was in an emergency situation Yes/no binary variable re: whether the law covers emergency vehicles/emergency situation; the same for those not in emergency situation (2 variables)
Exempts children for whom a doctor or a commissioner decided that the use of a restraint device is impractical (often due to the children’s disability) Yes/no binary variable (1 variable)
Exempts vehicle operators if more than one child was in a vehicle and there was not enough space/rear seats/seat belts to accommodate multiple child restraint devices (often, but not always, based upon the condition that the maximum number of those who could be seated in child restraint devices were seated in such devices) Yes/no binary variable (1 variable)