Booster Seats
February 10th, 2009 at 5:00 pm by David FarrarReaders (with kids especially) might want to check out this paper about how the use of booster eats in cars can reduce injuries to kids. This isn’t about infants but kids up until the age of ten years who are too short for seatbelts to best prevent injuries.
This video above shows the problem.
Tags: road safety
February 10th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
compulsory in Germany to age 12.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Cyclists have to wear a helmet when cycling. Should motorists, adult and child, be forced to wear a helmet when driving in order to reduce the possibility of head injury in a collision?
[DPF: I think it is different for adults and children. Adults can judge risk for themselves, children can not. So it can be appropriate to say that you must have your children safely protected in a car. As for helmets I don't think many die of head injuries in car crashes. Tends to be broken necks or being crushed]
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
why is it only the “nigga kids” they’re appealing to?
Another safety issue is airbags – under about 5″2″ and they can be fatal, especially the driver ones.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
davidp, perhaps helmets should be compulsroy for pedestrians and bus passengers too.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
BMW’s are proven to have a better survivability than Ladas. Should driving BMW’s be compulsary? Staying in bed is proven to have better survivability than getting out of bed…..
I think there should be an education programme so people understand the risks and impacts. If you drive infrequently and locally, then maybe your child’s life would be better protected by some other initiative (maybe swimming lessons?). If you drive all the time, then you as a parent should make a choice to get a booster seat.
I’m hoping that we aren’t suggesting compulsion, just education.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Steve Levitt doesn’t think booster seats matter for children over age two.
This looks an awful lot like the Bootleggers and Baptists phenomenon.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Adults can judge risk for themselves, children can not. So it can be appropriate to say that you must have your children safely protected in a car.
What if the children are in the care of an adult, as all children riding in cars are? Normally the responsibility is given to the adult not the government.
[DPF: Well you can argue that adults should be free to drive kids along on motorbikes holding a one year old in one arm, and steering with the other. But I think requiring children to be safely secured in a car is a good thing. Remember crashes can happen to the best driver]
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
BillyB>perhaps helmets should be compulsroy for pedestrians and bus passengers too.
Neither bus or train passengers wear seat belts. Some of them don’t even have seats for all passengers… they stand or walk around while the bus or train is still moving. I propose that seat belts be compulsory on public transport, and that passengers be banned from standing while the train or bus is moving. Perhaps this could be enforced by pressure sensors in the seats… if a train seat were occupied and the seat belt unbuckled, then the carriage would be brought to an automatic stop. Obviously the train would be unable to start until everyone was buckled up, and small children were in their train-version booster seats.
Helmets for public transport users would be an obvious bonus. Special train and bus police could patrol carriages and buses looking for unhelmeted passengers who would be fined and, if they had no helmet, put down at the next stop.
I’m tossing up whether train and bus passengers traveling through tunnels should be made to wear flame-resistant clothing and to carry oxygen supplies. There have been fatal tunnel fires in the Alps and a nasty inferno in the Channel Tunnel. We’d hate to have something similar happen to a bus going through the Mt Vic tunnel, with passengers dieing because they weren’t carrying oxygen masks.
It is vital that we take every possible precaution while traveling, especially when children are involved. It makes no sense to mandate compulsory protective equipment for cyclists while ignoring the vast majority of the traveling population.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
PaulL, There has been an education program going on for 20+ years and still a number of parents are, Thick, ignorant, arrogant or just plain stupid when it comes to the safety of kids. By kids i mean those who are too big for a “car seat” but young enough and small enough to need a booster seat.
Vote:In my opinion, it should be an offence for those who are taking kids in cars to have them seated in booster seats and securely strapped in.
Apart from the safety aspect, kids in booster seats can see better and tend to be less bored and travel better.
As parents my ex and i never left the driveway with out the kids belted into their booster seat and it frustrates me severely today when i see adults who should know better failing to either belt their kids in and fail to use a booster seat also.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Ben’s right: very minimal benefits of carseats for kids above age 2 or so. Minimal benefits if installed correctly and the kid’s sitting properly; sometimes negative benefits in the more realistic case. See Josh Gans’s discussion of it in his book Parentonomics. Or just go to the original Levitt paper here or to his talk at TED on same, here.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
These are compulsory in Ireland, where we were living recently. Certainly they are better in a crash than not using one. But one major downside of having them compulsory is that you need one for every child under 12. So you cannot:
- Take a friend of your child home unless you have an extra booster seat.
- Do youth work that involves transporting children under 12 unless you have your boot filled with enough booster seats for every seat in your car.
- Use a taxi unless they carry enough booster seats.
- etc…….
Yes, you are probably better off if you use one, ie have one in the car you use most often. But making it compulsory is completely impractical as it causes so many problems for so many people in all sorts of situations.
So I agree with education, but am completely opposed to regulation.
Vote:February 11th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Well you can argue that adults should be free to drive kids along on motorbikes holding a one year old in one arm, and steering with the other. But I think requiring children to be safely secured in a car is a good thing. Remember crashes can happen to the best driver
Yes, ok – but isn’t this the same as the school lunches debate? Parents can be trusted to decide whats in the school lunch but not what’s in the back seat? I’m not sure what drives the difference in your opinion?
By its nature, personal freedom can be misused. Where isn’t paternalism and regulation justified if you want to argue somebody somewhere is going to be irresponsible?
Vote:February 11th, 2009 at 12:42 am
I think the insiduous nature of DPF’s reaction is illustrated by the links to research showing that booster seats actually make a marginal if any difference. Better driving, defensive driving, or a slightly safer car would probably make far more difference. Perhaps those urban assault vehicles we all love to hate (including the one my partner owns…) should be mandatory? I’m not in favour of the government intervening in this way without some very clear cause. Seatbelts themselves seem an inexpensive and good initiative. The step up to booster seats…not so much.
Vote:February 11th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Also David, I think you are badly underestimating the value of personal choice in this. As Mr Dennis points out, regulation comes with significant problems of its own. It becomes hard to carry around extra kids. It adds significantly to the cost of owning a car. And, actually, the jury is still out on whether these things save lives. Leaving parents free to decide what works for them taking account of their own circumstances, financial position, and knowledge about the safety of booster seats is also valuable. The evidence is clear that markets do reward safety features that work, and individuals will pay a premium for safety. Regulation follows, and does not lead, the introduction of safety features.
But if it is as simple as you say, then where isn’t such paternalism justified? There are many things that are said to increase safety – backseat airbags and five point seat belts and roll cages and shatter resistant glass – if individual freedom is unimportant then what is the principle that prevents all of those things being made compulsory?
Vote:February 11th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I agree with DPF on this one. Booster seats are great for kids who would otherwise find the seatbelt at their neck in an accident. Also special car seats with 5 point seat belts for infants are an essential safety measure.
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