House committee to amend car-seat reuse bill after safety, storage concerns from fire and transit agencies

At a public hearing of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, lawmakers considered Proyecto de la Cámara 806, a bill that would amend Law 204 of 2024 (the program for collection, reuse and recycling of child car seats) to allow the Traffic Safety Commission and the Fire Bureau to receive and reuse donated child car seats without requiring the original instruction manual.

The issue drew technical testimony and operational concerns from the agencies responsible for inspections and training. Vivian Pedraza, coordinator of the child-occupant program at the Commission for Traffic Safety, told the committee the commission “recognizes that many Puerto Rican families lack the resources” to buy new seats and that donated seats often do not include the original manual, but she argued the law should retain the factory label. “We understand that the requirement that equipment be accompanied by the instruction manual can be removed from the text of the law,” Pedraza said, while adding that labels are “essential to identify the manufacture date, model of the seat, so that its service life…