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Comment by themartorana | Hacker News Reader

Oddly, you get fined in the U.S. for not wearing a seatbelt in the car you're driving ("Click it or ticket!") but I've never heard of someone being cited for not wearing one in a cab. Is it because it's the back seat?

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At least in manhattan, the yellow-taxi cab Taxi and Limousine Commission (the TLC I mentioned above) lobbied have an exemption to that law. Same thing with baby carriers. It's illegal to have a baby in a car without a certified car seat, but it's legal in a NYC taxi to just hold them:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_pass.shtml#9

This seems insane. Especially the later exception.

Surely its the other way around. It's reasonable to expect all adults to wear a seatbelt in a taxi but not reasonable to expect all taxis to carry child seats. It wouldn't be unusual to expect on occasion for a parent to travel with 3-3 children; should all taxis therefore carry 3 child seats? No. Should all adults travelling in taxis use a seatbelt when one is available and required when travelling in private transport? Surely yes.

When you request a taxi you can specify one with a child seat. Traveling without one is insane if you care about your children surviving a crash.

It's not. If you're riding in a cab, there's no way you have a baby carrier handy.

The cab could keep one in the trunk...

They are not one-size-fits all

I wonder how much extra you could charge for having a vehicle in the uber fleet with a variety of child seats, or similarly various handicapped accessories.

Answer is pretty easy to find out:

http://blog.uber.com/uberfamily

Also:

https://shuddle.us/

Given that cabs last a long time (i.e. can amortize the cost) it shouldn't be too difficult to make an adjustable child seat eh?

Why? It would be a major hassle otherwise when visiting cities like SF or NYC if you are not planning to rent a car (if you are, you might be carrying a car seat). I wouldn't be comfortable using a random carseat in the trunk, and in any case, given different age kids require different carseats, it's not really feasible.

Would you be more comfortable using none than using a "random one in the trunk"? I do not really see how a carseat can cause additional harm in an accident.

You can't bubble-wrap the whole world. Please don't try.

This is just so fundamentally disconnected from anything I can relate with I don't know what to say. I'm all about being critical of "safety first", sometimes to the chagrin of my wife, but having or even requiring child seats is not bubble wrapping. (though I do find the "until they're 9" in California a bit much)

Making it so babies aren't dying from minor traffic accidents is not bubble wrapping the whole world.

Yes, it is. Read the other replies, specifically the ones pointing out that child seats are not one-size-fits-all.

I do not enjoy your implication that the only way I could possibly disagree with you is if I'm ignorant.

(Shrug) I don't enjoy your implication that you should be allowed to re-engineer society singlehandedly. We'll have to agree to disagree.

I'm pretty sure I implied nothing of the sort.

Well, same here.

In Switzerland the driver has to make sure all passengers have their seatbelt on or they will also get fined.

Cab drivers here won't drive if you don't put it on.

Seems like a good solution to me.

Here in Brazil the law is like that too. I had a girlfriend that got fined once because of me :( (I forgot to put the seatbelt while I was in her car)

Front & rear seat belt laws vary by state; here's a summary of each state law, though it doesn't mention the taxi exemption.

http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/seatbelt_laws.html

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