In 2009 Costa Rica passed several new driving laws which will hopefully make the roads safer for everyone. One law that I wanted to point out has to do with car seats for children.

I found a fellow blogger listed these laws like the one I quoted below. According to his article, driving a child without the proper safety seat is a Class A offense which carries a fine of about $400 + the loss of ALL of your drivers license points.

Driving a child without proper safety seats (and you lose all 50 points). Included is driving a motorcycle or any other motorized similar vehicle (like quadracycles with a minor and that minor has no helmet.

Read the whole article…

The first year we brought one convertible car seat w/ a five point harness for the youngest (2yrs old at the time) and a regular booster seat for the older child who was 5yrs old at the time.  We checked the convertible car seat as baggage (most airlines will let you do this and not count it against your baggage limits) and we put the reg. booster into one of our larger suitcases.

According to these new laws ANY child under the age of 12yrs old has to be restrained in a booster seat so my advice to you would be that if you have a child under the age of 12 and you are planning to drive a car in Costa Rica, bring a booster seat. They are fairly cheap here in the US and I’m sure they’d cost you double if you bought one or rented one there.