Safety Belts & Child Seats

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The goal of the Occupant Protection Program is to promote correct and consistent use of safety belts and child safety seats.

Watch this 3-minute video presentation about Oregon's safety belt and child seat laws.

Wear Safety Belts video

Specific wording of statutory requirements can be found at ORS 811.210 - 811.225. *Note: You will have to scroll down to the appropriate statute number to locate the actual full text.

Adult Belt Law

Oregon law requires that all motor vehicle operators and passengers be properly secured with a safety belt or safety harness, unless all safety-belt equipped seating positions are occupied by other persons. This applies to passenger cars, pick up trucks, motor homes, and fee-based people transport carrying fifteen or fewer persons. Limited exemptions are allowed under ORS 811.215. Vehicle owners are required to maintain belt systems in working order.

Motor Homes

Motor homes are considered passenger vehicles under Oregon law and as such, adult belt and child seat requirements also apply to motor homes --- but only to forward-facing vehicle seating positions (those meeting federal safety standards for seat belt anchorages). Therefore, occupants should utilize all forward-facing belted positions before using side or rear-facing positions.

Commercial Vehicles

Oregon's safety belt law requires occupants of privately-owned commercial vehicles transporting 15 or fewer persons to use safety restraints including occupants of shuttles, taxis, limousines and vans. Among these types of vehicles, taxi cab drivers are the only occupants excepted from this rule.

ATVs

Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is implementing agency laws and rules relating to the use of ATVs.

Medical Exemptions

ORS 811.220 The Director of Transportation shall issue a certificate of exemption under ORS 811.215 for any person on whose behalf a statement signed by a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant is presented to the Department of Transportation. The statement must clearly explain why the use of a child safety restraint system, safety belt or safety harness by the person would be impractical or harmful to the person by reason of physician condition, medical problem or body size.

A safety restraint exemption cannot be issued for commercial drivers per Federal Code 392-16.

Faxes cannot be accepted. Please send ORIGINAL copies only.

Safety Belt Medical Exemption Form

For more information, please contact the Transportation Safety Office at 503-986-4199.

Child Safety Seat Law

Child passengers must be restrained in child safety seats until they weigh forty pounds or reach the upper weight limit for the car seat in use. Infants must ride rear-facing until they reach two years of age unless the child turned age one prior to May 26, 2017.

Booster Seat Law

Children over forty pounds or who have reached the upper weight limit for their forward-facing car seat must use a child seat with harness or a booster to 4'9" tall or age eight and the adult belt fits correctly.

Rear Seating for Children

There is no Oregon law specifically prohibiting children from riding in the front seat of passenger vehicles. However, a rear-facing infant seat cannot be placed in a front seating position that is equipped with an airbag because this would violate Oregon's requirement for "proper use" of a child safety seat. There is a national "best practice recommendation" calling for rear seating through age twelve.

National "Best Practice" Recommendations

Safety experts from USDOT have published national best practices recommendations which would keep children in each type of child seat longer than Oregon law prescribes, in addition to back seating through age twelve.

Belt or Booster

Belt fit can vary greatly from one vehicle to another and one child to another. If your child meets Oregon's legal requirements for moving from a booster seat to safety belt but you still have doubts about whether your child fits in the belt in your particular vehicle, then the following simple test can help. Place your child in the vehicle without a booster seat and then ask these questions. Until you can answer YES to all of the questions, your child should stay in a booster seat.

Can the child sit all the way back against the seat of the vehicle with their knees bent comfortably over the edge of the vehicle’s seat?

Do the child’s feet rest flat on the floor?

Does the shoulder belt lay flat across the collarbone and across the child’s chest? The belt should never lay across the child’s neck.

Does the lap belt lay low across the child’s the thighs? The belt should never lay across their stomach.

Can the child stay comfortably seated like this for the whole trip?

Oregon’s safety belt overtime enforcement program is a statewide traffic safety enforcement program (TSEP) that seeks to reduce the number of motor vehicle-related deaths and injuries by increasing public awareness of laws regarding the three most prevalent factors contributing to traffic crash injuries: safety restraint use, speed, and impaired drivers.