Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

I've mentioned this in another thread when the topic came up, but this has other effects like availability of backup childcare.

With kids, unbelievably, needing some form of car seat until the age of 8~12.. you are limited in who can help with pickup/dropoff/after school programs to someone who borrows your car or is doing so often enough to buy the correct sized car seats for each of your kids. The upper limit being 12 is pretty wild considering we then let them drive at 16.

Oddly of course in the US, if your kid is taking the school bus they are entirely unbelted and without a safety seat from the age of.. 5.

As an uncle to multiple kids under 10, I end up only spending time with them in their own home or when they are brought over.

Contrast that with my upbringing spending time with cousins/aunts/neighbors being driven around by whoever I was staying with for the afternoon.

In the UK, children that would otherwise need a child seat can travel without one in a taxi, or if the journey is unexpected and necessary, or if your car does not have rear seat belts.

So I guess you need to get something from the early 80s.

People are putting 12 year olds in car seats!?

In CA AB-435 is written to apply a 5-point fit test to anyone under 16.

Is that not just further formalizing "Use a car seat until the kid is big enough that you would expect seat belts to function properly"?

I knew a few drivers (small females) who we teased because they’d have to be in a car seat if they weren’t 18+.

I've observed that a whole lot of people absolutely do not keep putting kids in car seats once they're about the height & weight of a petite adult (us included).

So the guidelines say one thing, but I'd be surprised if a majority of parents are still putting their kids in them even by age 10, let alone 12.

If they're too short to fit safely in a seat and use the normal seat belt without one, then yes, a 12-year-old needs a booster seat even if it's not a "child seat".

In the UK the limit is 135cm, which is about the right height for the average 9-year-old, so you're talking about a very small 12-year-old indeed - a good 15cm shorter than average.

3rd percentile for boys at 12 years old. https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/cdc-charts.htm

In NSW the guide is the person should be > 145cm which is somewhere between age 9 and 14 for girls.

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/parents/child-ca...

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