Seat belts undoubtedly save lives. There is, however, evidence that child booster seats provide no more safety to children than using adult seat belts and are only effective at preventing minor injuries.
There's even evidence to suggest that booster seats may be LESS safe for children than seat belts.
Booster seats would be entirely unnecessary if automakers were to reposition rear seat belts to be more accommodating to children as children are almost always the rear seat passengers in vehicles. Instead, rear seat belts are positioned for grown adults who rarely sit in the back seat.
Agree on all counts regarding booster seats. The requirements of child seats, booster seats until 80 pounds, high powered air bags in the front, have resulted in growing families that used to get by on a mid-sized sedan forced into minivans, cross-overs, SUVs, and full-seized vans. The number of children killed who were belted in the middle back seat was something like five per year. Those were probably accidents that would have killed them regardless of technology. They don’t need rear seat headrests, either. The policy makers think that they can get zero without making cars unbearably inconvenient or unaffordable. We get to suffer while they chase that dream.