A new state law aims to improve children’s safety.

It requires:

• Children under 2 to ride in a rear-facing car seat.

• Children under 8 or under 57 inches tall to ride in a booster seat.

• Children are not allowed to ride in the front seat until age 8.

“We have just been so behind the times when it came to the laws about child passenger safety,” Lee Penny, manager of Safe Kids Upstate told the Greenville News.

The new child passenger restraint bill was signed into law last week.

According to the new law, children under 2-years-of-age “must be properly secured in a rear-facing child passenger restraint system in a rear passenger seat of the vehicle until the child exceeds the height or weight limit allowed by the manufacturer of the child passenger restraint system being used.” The change makes South Carolina one of just five states to require children to remain in rear-facing seats until age 2.

Penny said the rule matches what American Academy of Pediatrics has been recommending for years because rear-facing car seats can offer more head, neck and spine support in an accident.

“In watching the crash test videos, it’s amazing to see how much safer children are when rear-facing,” said Penny, adding that statistically they’re about five times safer than forward-facing car seats.

Even if a child reaches the age requirement, Penny recommends making sure children fit safely in the seatbelt — meaning the seatbelt is square on their shoulder, snug on their hips and their knees fold over the front of the seat — before letting them graduate from the booster seat.

The new law also changes the age at which children are legally allowed to ride in the front seat of a vehicle to

8. It was previously 6.

“I don’t think people realize how dangerous South Carolina roads are. We lose a child every week in South Carolina due to preventable injury from a motor vehicle collision.”