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Comment by gpapilion | Hacker News Reader

I think about the marginal safety improvement vs the economic costs of car seats a lot since having kids. The biggest improvement, the initial car seat laws probably made things better. At some point though it has direct costs with things like booster seats running until kids are big enough (probably 3rd or 4th grade), and indirect cost like you may have to miss work because you can’t have someone without a seat pick the kid up.

All in all it’s different than it was 30 years ago, and more expensive to do relatively mundane tasks with your kids.

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Each of my kids was over the moon when they outgrew the booster. Not having it there created so much more room as well.

Young child seats are nasty hateful things that skin your knuckles as you thread them in, and you too bang your head on the roof as you do it so regularly that it almost qualifies as slapstick

> Young child seats are nasty hateful things that skin your knuckles as you thread them in

For me, the first few months were the seat that just clicked out of the pram frame and into the car base [0]

After that was a rear facing seat that just sat in the car. Occasionally we'd move to another car, but that's just "unclick, move, click" [1]

Then it was forward facing seats which the kids put their seatbelts on just like adults [2]

What type of seats are you on about?

[0] https://www.pramworld.co.uk/maxi-cosi-easyfix-base-for-cabri... (or similar)

[1] https://www.kids-room.com/en/britax-roemer-reboard-child-car...

[2] https://www.britax-romer.co.uk/car-seats/highback-boosters/d...

There's a whole category of seats not covered by your links. Large seats that are forwards/backwards switchable so they last a few years. The seats are tethered to the safety latches, which although they are an "easy click" (two) can be quite tricky depending on the car and the tolerances involved. If the seat is facing forwards, it is also tethered to the sash belt, which I believe is the cause of "skinned knuckles" reference.

I 100% empathize with the person you replied to, and found your comment to be a bit dismissive in the "well I don't have a problem" fashion.

We have that kind of convertible car seat. Never had a problem with latches or straps (well, other than yesterday, when I had to take it out to fold down the seats & transport a piece of furniture). The car seat stays in the car, the kid plops down in the car seat, and then he either fights us over the 5-point harness or buckles it himself, depending on mood.

I think the big difference in perspective is whether you just leave the car seat in the car or take it out for every trip. I had a similar discussion on Facebook where I was like "Why does it matter how heavy the car seat is? It just stays in the car?" and then found out that a lot of people detach the carseats and lug them up to the house and back down every time they take a trip.

There's an element of privilege in being able to afford a complete set of car seats for each car you drive, but it totals about $300/kid (less for infants - many infant seats have a clickable base that's ~$100). If you can afford it I would highly recommend it - paying $300 to avoid daily skinned knuckles & schlepping 20-30 lbs. around is often well worth it.

> There's an element of privilege in being able to afford a complete set of car seats for each car you drive

There's more of an element of privilige for regularly being able to drive more than 1 car (or indeed for being able to drive a car anyway)

Booster seats aren’t really that bad, to be honest. Plus they can often serve as extra cupholders, although it may not advisable to utilize them as such if the two moving cupholders right next to them aren’t being careful.

Where I live (a country in Europe) the second hand market allows you to buy and resell (assuming reasonably good care) for a very small loss (stroller, car seats, cot) - we've done it several times... (we have sold them for around 70%-80% of what we got them)

Yes. Even putting aside the monetary cost of the seats (which if you buy second hand is fairly minimal - around £30 in the UK), the time-cost of researching and buying them, installing them (in yours, and grandparents' cars), taking them in an out the car if you're using the car for other things, doing up the fiddly catches on each car trip, is pretty high.

We have one child under two and I reckon it's probably cost a good (working) day of time in total, which quickly adds up when multiplied across the population. This should at least factor into the discussion when considering what the law should be.

Another way to look at it: I remember that 30y ago (in our Europe country) it was quite common to drive even without seatbelts in the back. Seatbelts were important in case of accident, but not needed in regular traffic. Traffic and cars are very different today, everything is faster and jittery. Nowadays, my experience is that seatbelts are needed always - they are securing kids even in regular traffic. And without proper car seat, seatbelt does not fit and function properly.

Hello fellow Czech. If you want to relive this, go to Bosnia.

Great point. With everything going on in the world and myself being a new father, I've recently reflected on the costs of these as well. We were gifted a "base" so that I can keep one in my vehicle and my wife can have one in hers, but it expires in a few months.

These things are expensive and lower income people often have to make due. Expiration dates / enforcement (if such a thing) add one more thing lower income families are forced to break the rules on.

Get a 360 degree seat once you outgrow the capsule...

IMHO seats are not expensive. We've got one of the best one and spread over 4.5 years it's half of what nappies cost.

What (dollars:life) value do you think is the cutoff point?

I wonder what the dollars:life cutoff value is across various policies, using (marginal safety improvement:the economic costs) to calculate it.

Here’s the EPA’s take, that a life is worth $7.4M: https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

NPR (I think Planet Money) made an episode on that few months ago about that. They've mentioned backup cameras don't make economic sense, but something along lines "if you run over your child a lot more dies" was said...

While they don’t make economic sense perhaps, they make strong functional sense. I was always proud of my ability to back into spots, but even I have to admit they make backing up a million times easier. I don’t want one for the safety, I want it for the convenience.

Government mandated them.

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