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Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

economist.com

321–330 of 411 posts

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#321
post #262

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…

I replaced my 3-series BMW with a Honda Odyssey, and I've spent two years singing its praises. Part of the problem is that we have created a culture that uses cars as a form of self expression, and many early parents aren't ready to "be" a minivan. But the minivan is what you actually want as a parent: room for six people of any size, or four people and at least twice as much cargo as an SUV, with safe, remote contro…

I own a Porsche 911, a Mercedes GL 550, and a Toyota Sienna XLE. I like cars. However, one of my best friends never told me he was going to the annual car show, despite the fact that we often have lunch together. When I asked why he said it was because I had mentioned that I think the minivan is a peak of automotive greatness. He comes from the Detroit area, and literally assumed I didn’t care about cars simply because I like minivans!

Also, I may be a bit on the spectrum because I simply do not think about cars as a means of self expression. I don’t spend $120,000 on a car because I think it would impress somebody. I am a lousy mind reader and have no idea what people would think about what I drive, nor do I judge people on what they drive. That is bizarre to me.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex.

> We still have a birth rate that is too high. It will be a long long time before we need to work on raising the birth rate and the problem isn't that complex. Do you have any citations for this? Not snarking—genuinely curious, not arguing, but I was under the impression that most population growth in developed countries like the U.S. was due to immigration rather than above-replacement fertility rates.

It probably depends on the metric you're trying to optimize. I was curious about that as well, but I was thinking in terms of the maximum number of humans the earth can support. We certainly haven't hit that yet, we have large swaths of land allocated to relatively inefficient means of producing food (i.e. cattle).

Also, don't we need some level of population growth for Social Security to function correctly? We could replace Social Security, but it would be difficult and expensive.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#323

Child #3 is about to be born any day now. I was shocked to learn that we just can't get three car seats into the back of our Model 3. Fortunately the other vehicle is a minivan, but the rear row can seat 3 without car seats, or two with car seats. This means we can no longer fit grandparents with all kids.

(Exciting!)

I do wonder how many techie parents are waiting for the 7 seat Tesla before getting their third or fourth kid.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#324
Two blokes wonder why the same highly educated women who want a safer world for their children don’t want to push four babies out of their vagina.

Edited to add: “Dr Nickerson and Dr Solomon found, in fact, that the third-child deterrent appears stronger among wealthier families” - they put this down to them not wanting to buy a larger vehicle to accommodate 3+ kids because it’s too gauche!

I think we’re supposed to conclude that car seats are actually costing lives, which is the wrong conclusion to draw because it ignores all the injury and disability caused by car accidents.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#326
post #4

I once read a convincing argument that, in some cases, American's resistance to helmets caused helmet laws to have a net negative effect on health. The author claimed that the laws caused enough of a reduction in ridership that the lost exercise outweighed the reduction in injury. I've attempted to find the paper again, but I can't seem to track it down.

[deleted]

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once saw a motorbike with two people and a cow in western Kenya. It wasn't a /big/ cow, but still.

I mostly go to /fit/ for lifting advice. I'll have to check out /big/ because i really just want to get cow-huge in 2021.

Look chums, I know, I get it. Sure. HN is a place for blah blah blah. But did we have to downvote this comment? I can't believe we're 'preserving' the quality of HN by downvoting gems like this.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare pays primarily for emergency hospitalization scenarios (referred to as Part A). Anything that happens outside of a hospital stay (called outpatient services) and medications come from Parts B, C, and D. Coverage for parts B, C, and D is insanely complicated and involves some means testing and who knows what else. There’s private health insurers involved too, and if you can’t afford that, then you can go to t…

And "Medicare for all" is a serious proposal?

I don’t think people mean copy it in it’s current form, at least not forever. It’s just a catchy name to refer to a program where the government pays for healthcare, even though the current iteration of Medicare is hardly that.

The idea is probably to expand the current system to everyone, which is better than nothing, and then work on improving it.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How are they on road trips? Instead of a luxury SUV, my main concern is comfort.

We do a lot of cross country trips visiting family and my wife and I will alternate driving. If passenger gets tired of looking at the road or wants to get some sleep they usually hop over the center console and go hang out in the power reclining 3rd row. 2 kids ride in the 2 center captain chairs and one in the 3rd. Larger dog (90 lb) usually wanders around between everything. We usually put a cargo box on top so we can keep the cabin cleaner but we'd still fit without it.

I also own a top trim mid-sized luxary SUV and I'd say the limited pacifica (plus all packages) is easily the go-to option for comfort on road trips. Its no contest how much better something like that is compared to what basically equates to a larger sedan with a big trunk. Maybe something like a suburban or a yukon xl could compete but thats about all I'd think might.

Re: Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly go to /fit/ for lifting advice. I'll have to check out /big/ because i really just want to get cow-huge in 2021.

Look chums, I know, I get it. Sure. HN is a place for blah blah blah. But did we have to downvote this comment? I can't believe we're 'preserving' the quality of HN by downvoting gems like this.

In general, HN tries to be a place where only informative comments are prized, specifically excluding jokes. There are lots of funny jokes around here (and I don't usually downvote them myself), but the fear is that HN will turn into Reddit, where every post has dozens of joke comments attached.

That's fun! I love Reddit. But it's not what HN tries to be.

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