A 3-year-old at Casino Royale!?

[Simplicity]

If you think about it, it is mandatory to have a car seat in order to take your baby home. (They actually come out and check). That is for a child's safety. So why not a class for a child's safety? How about mandatory, in hospital - parent classes. And I don't mean make it a law. I think hospitals should start it. "If you have a baby here, you are required to spend 1 hour learning this". Heck you are stuck there for a couple days anyways. Or maybe hospitals should just have a nurse take some time with the parents and run over a few basics? Something would be better than nothing. I have no idea, but something has got to be better than the nothing that we are doing. Even if it saves 1 child from dying needlessly at the hands of some moron parent.

The book Freakonomics has an interesting section on carseat safety. It turns out that pretty much all of the safety gained from a carseat for children (other than infants) is gained by putting the child in the backseat. The carseat itself really doesn't do all that much. Add to that the fact that 90% of people with carseats don't install them correctly, and there might actually be dangers in having carseats. But now that carseats have become a required product for parents, we'll pretty much be forced to buy them until the end of time.

As for nurses, I think most hospitals do already have nurses explain some basics to parents at birth. I know I learned most of what I know from the ICU nurses.

 

[DonTadow]

The book Freakonomics has an interesting section on carseat safety. It turns out that pretty much all of the safety gained from a carseat for children (other than infants) is gained by putting the child in the backseat. The carseat itself really doesn't do all that much. Add to that the fact that 90% of people with carseats don't install them correctly, and there might actually be dangers in having carseats. But now that carseats have become a required product for parents, we'll pretty much be forced to buy them until the end of time.

As for nurses, I think most hospitals do already have nurses explain some basics to parents at birth. I know I learned most of what I know from the ICU nurses.

I wouldn't hold those studies to water, at least not with my experience. MY wife, a legal secretary, processes crime scene photos and has seen her share of baby bombs (what the legal people call babies thrown through windows when they are only secured with aseatbelt (or nothing) in the backseat.

Not pretty.

 

[Aurora]

As for nurses, I think most hospitals do already have nurses explain some basics to parents at birth. I know I learned most of what I know from the ICU nurses.

Ah, but NCU nurses are much different than the regular ones in my experience.

 

[Simplicity]

I wouldn't hold those studies to water, at least not with my experience. MY wife, a legal secretary, processes crime scene photos and has seen her share of baby bombs (what the legal people call babies thrown through windows when they are only secured with aseatbelt (or nothing) in the backseat.

Not pretty.

Again. Not talking about infants. It's clear that without some sort of special restraint, an infant would just become a projectile in a crash.

 

[DonTadow]

Again. Not talking about infants. It's clear that without some sort of special restraint, an infant would just become a projectile in a crash.

Whether its infants, toddler or kids if their below a certain height they can easily come out the safety belt.

 

[Simplicity]

Look, I'm not saying that it's not a debateable point. But I am saying that the data is not necessarily pointing in the direction everyone tends to think it is. Your evidence is anecdotal, and this is not.

Short: http://www.nd.edu/~jwarlick/documents/Seat_beltLevitt.pdf
Long: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/doyle-levitt car seat injuries.pdf

Am I going to put my kid in a carseat? Of course I am. Is it in the best interest of my child? Who knows?

The entire point of the Freakonomics book was that if people actually spent the time to analyze the data, they'd come up with all sorts of unintuitive results. Carseats are not necessarily safer; a swimming pool at home is far more dangerous than a gun at home; etc.

 

[DonTadow]

Look, I'm not saying that it's not a debateable point. But I am saying that the data is not necessarily pointing in the direction everyone tends to think it is. Your evidence is anecdotal, and this is not.

Short: http://www.nd.edu/~jwarlick/documents/Seat_beltLevitt.pdf
Long: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/doyle-levitt car seat injuries.pdf

Am I going to put my kid in a carseat? Of course I am. Is it in the best interest of my child? Who knows?

The entire point of the Freakonomics book was that if people actually spent the time to analyze the data, they'd come up with all sorts of unintuitive results. Carseats are not necessarily safer; a swimming pool at home is far more dangerous than a gun at home; etc.

And thus theproblem when reports are created to specifically disprove something. Both the govn'ts data and big three's data (even the data you present) say that car seats are safer.

I could care less if the numbers say 54 percent or 100 percent if it is safer its safer, which is what both of those reports say. Bottom line is that they are safer.

Thats factual. Now, if you want to play the numbers game with your children to prove "the man" is trying to control your life too much go right ahead. But most concerned parents don't gamble like that.

 

[Simplicity]

And thus theproblem when reports are created to specifically disprove something. Both the govn'ts data and big three's data (even the data you present) say that car seats are safer.

I could care less if the numbers say 54 percent or 100 percent if it is safer its safer, which is what both of those reports say. Bottom line is that they are safer.

Thats factual. Now, if you want to play the numbers game with your children to prove "the man" is trying to control your life too much go right ahead. But most concerned parents don't gamble like that.

Maybe you should read that article a little closer before declaring "facts". Carseats are 54% safer than not restraining your child AT ALL. They're 54% safer than no seatbelt whatsoever. It doesn't take a genius to figure that carseats are safer than nothing. The point of the paper is that once you account for putting the kid in the backseat and putting them into a seatbelt... Carseats aren't really any safer for children over 2. And seatbelts aren't costing us $300 million a year.

The authors are economists, who if nothing else are extremely good at looking at statistical correlation. It's what they do. It's not like they have a major stake in disproving the efficacy of car seats. This doesn't come from the car-seat haters of America. In fact the authors themselves are trying to determine why the margin is so small given that other studies using other survey methods seem to show different results.

The paper was using government data (plus insurance industry data) of hundreds of thousands of car crashes. So saying that the government data proves it safer is not entirely accurate, it is?

If "the man" constitutes statistics, then yes. The man is out to get you.

I think I'm going to let this thread die its lonely death now. Feel free to have the last word, if you like.