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Comment by georgeecollins | Hacker News Reader

Yeah but did you ever read the chapter of Freakonomics about car seats? Car seats improve children's chance of injury over every case except the one where kids sit in the back seat with an old fashioned seat belt on. Compared to that, car seats perform about the same. (Note: I get that an infant can't use a regular seat belt.)

It's true that car seats have been great for safety. But a lot of that (if not most) is that it forced parents to put their kids in the back seat of the car (much safer) in most cases and always secured by a belt. The idea that a newer car seat has some magic safety improvement that is say, more important then the difference in safety between a mini-van and a two seat sportscar is a fallacy. If you are worried about your kid being safe in a car, put them in a minivan and have them sit in a car seat in the middle back. Even with an old car seat that is very safe.

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That book should never have been published with that chapter. The authors allegedly use boosters and car seats for their own kids, even after writing that chapter - let that sink in for a while...

The response[1] from actual medical professionals, and particularly this quote is interesting

> As pediatricians, scientists and leaders of the world's largest study on children in crashes, we think that overinterpretation of findings from a single source of data led Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (July 10) to claim that child safety seats are no more effective than seat belts for 2- to 6-year-olds. They examined children in fatal crashes (about 1,200 per year) while ignoring the equally informative data on those in nonfatal crashes (450,000 per year). Our research, which includes over 25,000 in-depth interviews and over 800 crash investigations, consistently shows that child safety seats and booster seats significantly lower the risk of serious injury compared to seat belts alone. Their conclusions stand in stark contrast to the existing body of scientific data that support current child restraint recommendations, and are, in our opinion, irresponsible and dangerous.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/magazine/letters.html

> The authors allegedly use boosters and car seats for their own kids, even after writing that chapter - let that sink in for a while...

Because it's the law and you run afoul of child endangerment laws if you don't.

After watching Levitt's TED talk and reading the remarks from Durbin and Winston, I tried to find some published research about the matter and didn't have much luck. Levitt was very specific about what they looked at and how the conduced their research. Their conclusion was that it warranted further research. Durbin and Winston's comments were very general and came off as very "trust us".

I'm wondering if anyone else might have a link to one of their actual studies?

I like the suggest Levitt made of automakers integrating 5 point child harnesses into backseats. This seems like such an obvious improvement that could be an upgrade option when purchasing a new vehicle.

I do not dispute that 5 point harnesses are safer, but have you ever been strapped in one? You're more or less unable to move and are just completely fixated. At some point we should think about the effect of this, as it would likely lead to less children being strapped in.

Also, its not like they are saying child seats are ineffective. They are just saying the effects are from many things. Look, I read that and drove my kids around in car seats.

It's amazing how hostile people are to that chapter. It's just a book talking about statistics, I really doubt it influenced anyone's behavior

I'm 100% certain that it has lead people to take their children out of car seats as soon as they legally could, instead of letting them sit in it until they grew out of it.

What that chapter should say, is that if you're ever in an accident fatal for your child, it doesn't matter if it used a seat or not. It completely neglect to say that for non fatal accidents, the vast majority, the car seats do make a difference.

For families with 3 children, the child car seat requirement generally pushes them into a minivan because you can't install car seats 3 to a row, so you need an extra row. And then you still max out at 1 friend instead of 3, because even a minivan won't seat more than 4 child car seats.

It's also not magic getting your children into a car seat. It takes time, the angles are awkward, and when parked on a busy road it often exposes parents to traffic. I've only heard of 1 fatal accident through where a parent was struck by a car (sideswiped) while fiddling with a car seat.

I have 3 children and a minivan. We bought the minivan not strictly because 3 carseats won't fit across the 2nd row of most reasonably large cars (there's a niche market for narrow carseats, see Diono brand) but because:

  1. with 3 kids we have to transport a whole lot of stuff when we travel and minivans have more weatherproof storage space than most other vehicles
  2. a minivan is super functional for transporting things which aren't humans (it's effectively an 8 foot covered bed pickup with the rear seats removed). I brought a twin sized box spring home from the store inside the van *WITH* 2 kids in the middle row this past weekend, try that in most SUVs.
  3. the sliding doors are SOOOO much nicer to use in tight parking spots for loading/unloading
  4. minivans get as good or better fuel economy as compared to larger SUVs
  5. minivans cost less than many SUVs to own and operate

I have a crazy theory that car sizes (and prices) are what are limiting the number of children people have.

It would be ridiculous to try to transport a five child family these days.

I would go with lack of parental leave, decreasing income security, stagnating wages, student loan debt, enormous healthcare expenses, and need for dual income households as well as being in school for longer periods of time to secure good jobs over car sizes and prices.

Not to mention minivans exist and aren’t that expensive compared to cars.

Well you can buy a suburban and an eight passenger minivan.. they do still sell 15 passenger vans as well....

The USA is economically oppressive to larger families in many ways like this.

I often do three car seats in a row across the back of midsized cars like the Toyota Corolla. It's very tight, but it works.

(You do need relatively compact seats; I'm using the cheapest Walmart seat)

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