State and city laws governing the use of child restraint systems in rideshare vehicles and taxicabs: requirements and responsibility.

Objectives: To identify, describe and critique state and local policies related to child passenger safety in for-hire motor vehicles including ridesharing and taxis.

Methods: We used standard legal research methods to collect policies governing the use of child restraint systems (CRS) in rideshare and taxi vehicles for all 50 states and the 50 largest cities in the USA. We abstracted the collected policies to determine whether the policy applies to specific vehicles, requires specific safety restraints in those vehicles, lists specific requirements for use of those safety restraints, seeks to enhance compliance and punishes noncompliance.