Kids' Car Seats & Seat Belts

RSA 265:107-a. Child Passenger Restraints Required.

'The vast majority of high state courts and state legislatures that have considered the issue have concluded that evidence of the nonuse of seat belts is not admissible for the purpose of proving plaintiffs' negligence. ... Courts in the majority have reasoned that where a plaintiff's failure to wear a seat belt merely adds to injuries caused by a car accident, without contributing to the happening of the accident, the nonuse of the seat belt is not negligence. ... There is no indication that New Hampshire law permits the admission of seat belt evidence to prove comparative negligence. To the contrary, both New Hampshire statutory and common law suggest that such evidence is not admissible for this purpose, and this view is consistent with the clear trend in other jurisdictions. Therefore, this Court concludes that New Hampshire would follow the majority view.'

'The appropriate use of seatbelt evidence in crashworthiness cases has been a source of much controversy. For a long period, many courts refused to permit the introduction of evidence that a victim was not wearing a seatbelt in a product liability action. Courts provided several reasons for this resistance: there is no duty to mitigate damages prior to sustaining an injury; a defendant must take the plaintiff as it finds him or her; there is no common law duty to wear a seatbelt; and seatbelt evidence leads to excessive speculation by experts (and thus protracted litigation). ... State legislatures, in enacting mandatory seat belt laws, further complicated this issue by including limitations on the introduction of seatbelt evidence in civil trials. For example, New Hampshire's seatbelt law contains such a limitation. See N.H.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 265:107–a IV. The statute requires minors to wear seatbelts but prohibits a defendant from proving comparative negligence through evidence that the plaintiff was not wearing his or her seatbelt.'

See He-C 4001.25(g), (h), and He-C 4002.29(aa), (ab)

See 6343.04(b)(5)(b)(c), 6343.06(a)(5); (a)(7)(e).

This standard specifies requirements for child restraint systems used in motor vehicles and aircraft.