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Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

economist.com

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Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#191

Post by safetyengineer »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #171
irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

> the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five I recently visited Pakistan for the first time, and was amazed to see a family of five riding around on a small Honda motorbike. The father was driving, a small child sat in front of the father, the was mother hanging on behind the father, and the oldest daughter sitting on the far back with both legs hanging off to the left while holding an inf…

Helmets work but after working in automotive safety, motorcycles are death traps.

I can't emphasize this enough.

They are no automobile, and are not comparable.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#192

Post by safetyengineer »

anonAndOn wrote: post #42
kube-system wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, this was what minivans were for: families with three kids.

Minivans are only un-cool until you are forced to appreciate their practicality. They can transport groups of kids and all their gear, a bunch of dogs, a surprising amount of furniture or even large sheets of lumber or drywall. I would only consider replacing my minivan with an electric minivan.

Uncool when I was 15 and 16.

At 17 we'd have parking lot parties in my minivan.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#193

Post by souprock »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #131
nsxwolf wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got the Pacifica a few years ago, never looked back. Probably will buy a new one in a few years.

What is the wear and tear cost per mile? I would be very apprehensive about investing in a Fiat Chrysler product.

Fiat cars are pretty cheap.

Sometimes a Fiat is the only reasonable option. That was the case when I bought my smallest car. Despite the small exterior size, the 500L is really roomy on the inside. It works for a person who is 6'10" (208 cm) tall, leaving enough room to sit up straight and wear a hat. None of the normal large cars (SUV, minivan, pickup, etc.) were as good. With the short length and small turn radius, parking is very easy.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#195

Post by tastygreenapple »

Someone1234 wrote: post #57
war1025 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We ended up buying Diono Radian carseats [1], which are marketed as "the 3-across car seat" We can fit our three kids in the back of our Honda Civic perfectly well. But we've had exactly the same conversation. In order to have a fourth kid, we'd need to swap out our vehicles. House is fine, insurance is fine, income is fine, but we'd need to upgrade vehicles, and that seems to be just enough friction to make the idea…

The Radian is definitely king of three across. But they're premium priced ($200 each, or $600 for three), and sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips. In general people who have never had kids don't seem to grasp that the average (non-Radian) car-seat is BIGGER than an adult side-to-side. The Radian series has a niche because they produced a car-seat the same size as an adult (with no loss of safety), but had…

$600 for car seats that make a compact sedan as practical as a 3-row SUV for parents seems like a solid investment.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#197

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

war1025 wrote: post #89
Someone1234 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Radian is definitely king of three across. But they're premium priced ($200 each, or $600 for three), and sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips. In general people who have never had kids don't seem to grasp that the average (non-Radian) car-seat is BIGGER than an adult side-to-side. The Radian series has a niche because they produced a car-seat the same size as an adult (with no loss of safety), but had…

> sacrifice comfort particularly for longer trips. I guess maybe they are less comfortable than traditional car seats, but since car seats are basically build like lazy-boy recliners, that seems unsurprising. Our kids have never complained about the comfort or lack-thereof. They seem to have pretty equivalent comfort when compared to the back seat itself as far as I can tell.

Yeah, the Diono is also just the most well-designed car seat, in all sorts of ways: e.g. they have the best-designed latch clips I’ve seen.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#198

Post by flubert »

1-6 wrote: post #155
irateswami wrote: post #15

This is an actual conversation I had to have with my wife, having a third kid definitely requires a larger vehicle as the vast majority of cars today simply don't work for a family of five. Child car seats are too wide and the backseats of most cars are too narrow, and the price jump to a vehicle that would be able to handle three child car seats at once is enormous. Throw in some dogs, a couple pieces of luggage tha…

Let's not forget the expiration dates on Car Safety Seats. C'mon, really? Seats with Styrofoam may deteriorate eventually but I haven't heard of a casualties due to expired car seats.

All the car seats for my kids were chiefly composed of plastics. I'm sure there is quite a high factor of safety for car seat design, but there are quite a few time and temperature related failure modes for plastics (i.e. getting brittle over time as the plasticizers outgas, UV exposure, etc.).

https://www.sintef.no/globalassets/project/ffs/dokumenter/se...

https://www.amazon.com/Plastics-Failure-Guide-2E-Prevention/...

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#199

Post by souprock »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #130
ashtonkem wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual full size vans from that era had horrible crash safety records, perhaps they built a bad reputation because of that?

In the 80s people didn't care that much. An 80s van is still gonna beat an 80s car in terms of crash test results. And the bad results are only for the driver's legs. The kids in rows 2/3/4 are safe as can be

Don't forget the 5th row. My van has 15 seats. I'll fill the final seat this summer.

The safety problem is that most drivers can't deal well with a suspension that lets the vehicle movement lag well behind the driver inputs. Drivers would roll the vans over while driving on perfectly straight roads with good pavement. It's the same as pilot-in-the-loop oscillation. When the vehicle has a delayed response, the operator will overdo the input. That then needs to be corrected, but the correction may also be overdone. Each mistake leads to another mistake of larger magnitude in the opposite direction.

The extended-body vans like mine are particularly bad. When the body got extended, the rear axle didn't get moved rearward. Instead, the read tire pressure was increased to compensate for bad axle location.

Non-professional drivers often got asked to drive these vans for daycare, church groups, and other group activities. The problem got so bad that the federal government mandated that states act to keep the vans from being used for daycare and similar uses. Each state did something different. My state uses a $250,000 fine against the original dealer that sold the vehicle new, even if the vehicle was subsequently sold. This totally shut down new vehicle sales. The vans can be leased however, and they can be purchased coming off of a lease. As a result, all vans are provisioned as preferred by the rental companies. (white, naturally aspirated gasoline V8, cloth seats, etc.)

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#200

Post by kube-system »

ashtonkem wrote: post #121
hombre_fatal wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a triplet in the 80s where the fullsize van was a family favorite, and I haven’t seen vans much since. Why did the fullsize van fall out of style? (Assuming it did) It doesn’t seem much bigger than the other goliath SUVs and pickup trucks that saturate our US streets.

Actual full size vans from that era had horrible crash safety records, perhaps they built a bad reputation because of that?

It was the unibody minivan that killed their reputation.

Full size vans were larger, yes, but due to their construction being based on legacy truck platforms, they offered a wildly inferior driving experience. They got single digit gas mileage (many had dual gas tanks to compensate), were clumsy to park, were rear-wheel drive, relatively more expensive to maintain, and offered a stiff and unrefined ride.

When the Caravan was introduced, it was better in every single way that would be relevant for the average family.

Stuff like the Ford Transit is a lot better than the Econoline it replaced, but they didn't bring it to the US until they were about 29 years too late.

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