Tennessee driving lesson · Vehicle Control & Defensive Driving
Air bags, pickup beds & children left in cars
A 4-minute lesson from the Tennessee course. Read the rules and examples, follow the handbook page references, and check your understanding before you move on.
Air bags save lives, but they're designed to work with safety belts, and they pose a severe risk to children. Tennessee also has specific laws about kids in pickup beds and kids left alone in cars — where heat can kill in minutes.
Know the rule
Air bags plus safety belts are the best protection available. An air bag deploys and deflates faster than the blink of an eye; NHTSA credits air bags with saving more than 39,976 lives from 1987 to 2012.
It's illegal for a child under 6 to ride in a pickup bed, and for a child 6 to 12 to ride in one on any state or interstate highway (cities and counties may ban it on local roads too).
It's an offense to knowingly leave a child under 7 in a car on public property or at places like shopping centers or apartment complexes without someone at least 13 watching — if conditions are risky, the engine is running, or the keys are inside.
Depending on the harm, leaving a child in a car can be charged from a Class A misdemeanor (up to 11 months, 29 days and $2,500) to a Class A felony (15 to 60 years and up to $50,000). Abuse of a child 6 or younger is a Class D felony.
It's 90 degrees and you want to run into the store for two minutes while your toddler naps in the car. Don't. The inside can reach 160 degrees within minutes, and leaving a child under 7 with the keys inside is an offense on its own.
Check your understanding
Read the question, decide on an answer, then open it to check the explanation. These are Roadwise study questions based on the source handbook.
Children age 12 and under are safest riding:
In the back seat of the vehicle
In the front seat with an air bag
Anywhere, as long as they wear a belt
In the front seat only if the air bag is deactivated
Answer: In the back seat of the vehicle
Children 12 and under are safer in the back seat, regardless of whether the vehicle has a passenger-side air bag.