On Car Seats as Contraception • Hacker News Board

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#91

Post by chucksmash » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #22

While I feel we need to be gradually reducing the number of people on the planet (can anyone point me to the number of humans earth can sustainably support?), I agree with what the article is saying. It seems to me one of the biggest things is the pace of change and potential for criminal charges. Especially considering that many people are likely breaking the laws (not just car seats, but supervision, etc), with no…

I'm somewhat sympathetic to this view. My parents moved between states a week after I was born and for the entire 12 hour trip my mom held me in her lap in the front seat. When we made short trips in-town, we as kids would get to sit in the "way back" of a hatchback without seatbelts (or even seats) as a treat.

Neither of these were optimal safety choices. We were definitely at a higher risk of death or injury. If everyone did this society wide, the number of child fatalities in traffic accidents *would* be higher. Yes, people who relate such anecdotes and then say, "...and we survived" are literally demonstrating survivorship bias.

Times change and I don't think I'd make these same safety trade-offs with my kids. I'm also not sure taking these kind of risk/reward trade-off decisions out of the hands of parents is a net positive either.

It's hard to talk about whether the current status quo is reasonable because for many of us, that status quo predates us and "wait, you're saying you are FOR more kids dying in car wrecks" is a pretty natural reaction. For that reason, I think it's easier to consider the reasonableness of an incremental, hypothetical change to the current status quo. Imagine a study comes out tomorrow that shows that children in wrecks have a 3% higher fatality rate in cars manufactured before 2015, so a law is passed saying that as of 2024 driving a pre-2015 car with children in it will be a ticketable offense. Is there anything that would give you pause about this scenario, is it an unalloyed good thing, or is it another "I mean, I GUESS it's for the best, it's complicated tbh" situation?

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#92

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

antiterra wrote: post #20

> Enthusiasm for these laws has not been curbed by studies showing that child car seats are no more effective than seat belts in preventing death or serious injury for children above age two (e.g. Levitt 2008, Doyle and Levitt 2010). Like many of the other Freakonomics conclusions, this one is at best oversimplified, and at worst actively dangerous. To simply quote it as uncontested fact is ridiculously incompetent.…

For those that might be unaware, the cited papers are by the Freakenomics Author Steven Levitt and this is a decades long campaign on this with Ted talks and Op-eds and everything.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#93

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

I've wondered on a similar vein to this from time-to-time about the relative numbers on deaths from children being struck in the parking lot of a shopping center vs. children dying from being left in a hot car. The raw numbers are about 205 deaths per year from collisions in non-roadway circumstances (https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10658-study-parking-l...) vs. 38 deaths from heatstroke (https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safe...).

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#94

Post by ianbicking » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #16

This resonates with me. It’s beyond tedious to get the kids in and out of the car seats all the time, and needing to buy a larger car to fit more than two kids gave me significant pause. We eventually decided to have more kids, and the positives far outweigh the negatives for us, but to this day the hassle of loading and unloading the car to go places is the single biggest negative experience of raising children. It…

... and then it's an even bigger impediment to sharing responsibility for children, as you try to move seats around or make sure grandparents have duplicate equipment. Hard to spontaneously have another parent bring a kid home from school. We had to get special car seats to carpool with my sister, just so we could fit it all in.

These psychological safety burdens - and accompanying negotiations between caretakers - make it so hard to provide mutual aid. We're lucky to have found other parents with similar understandings, but the moralizing on safety makes it hard to even discuss.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#95

Post by golemotron » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #75

golemotron wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trajectory toward a long, slow population collapse. It's hard to imagine what gets world population back up to replacement rate (2.1 children per woman) once it dips below. Children are expensive and technology makes having them far more optional than it ever has been in history. The world's population is aging out of its fertility years. Once we're below 2.1 the trajectory will be down, short of some severe cultural…

Perhaps the relatively short term pains of population collapse will be a net benefit in the long term - forcing economic systems and society to change in ways that support longer term stability with better quality of life.

Maybe. I just wonder what event will ever push us above the replacement rate (2.1) ever again.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#96

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

allknowingfrog wrote: post #61

This article argues that the birthrate is too low, and that car seats discourage couples from having more than two children. It doesn't seem to offer any justification for the idea that this is the right way to adjust the birthrate (versus, for example, addressing some of the challenges that stop couples from having children in the first place).

Things that give people good feels about government are mercilessly attacked by certain types of economists.

Safety regulations are one of those things. Thats why there's been a decades long propaganda campaign against Health and Safety laws and regulations.

https://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertaria...

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#97

Post by schredder » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

soylentcola wrote: post #52

mantas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people who understand these issues don't procreate, then people who don't understand this will dominate and keep ruining earth into... ground?

I believe there was a (logically/ethically questionable, yet amusing) film that outlined this exact scenario.

Idiocracy?

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#98

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #90

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree there's some medium there, but I think we can both agree that despite the Overton window shifting we probably won't consider riding in the bed of a pickup acceptable child safety. As I understand it the rear facing childseats are only required until the age of two. If you can only fit one in the back of your truck, doesn't that mean that really you just need to stagger out your children if you want t…

"we probably won't consider riding in the bed of a pickup acceptable child safety." On a private road (my example) at low speeds "As I understand it the rear facing childseats are only required until the age of two. If you can only fit one in the back of your truck, doesn't that mean that really you just need to stagger out your children if you want to have multiple?" Which is covered in the article and goes over the…

> On a private road (my example) at low speeds OK, so that's an anecdote entirely unrelated to the question at hand regarding child seats.

> With fewer laws, those determinations are left up to the individual. With more laws, society is making that determination and imposing it via force (criminal laws), removing the person's discretion. I think this ignores edge cases, and leads to more people feeling ostracized, powerless over their own life, and oppressed by the masses.

Well unfortunately for them they are responsible for another human being. It's not just their own self interest in question, and when the other party can't effectively advocate for itself it only makes sense to create minimum standards of care.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#99

Post by pwinnski » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #27

renox wrote: post #23

Very funny: we had a hard time finding a car wide enough to accomodate three child safety seats without being too long to park.. Now our children are getting older so this is less an issue, but (Europeans) car are still quite bad for three children: the one in the middle has often a reduced place and/or an unconfortable seat.

People who haven't actually tried, or haven't had kids at all, really don't grasp how problematic three car seats across actually is. Car seats are wider than most adults, and there's little standardization (either car or seat design). So you're often left looking for articles or anecdotes that list both specific vehicles with a specific make/model of car seat. It does exist, it is just painful and annoying. Even sho…

Gosh, yes. When my third child was due to be born, I was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry, a mid-sized car, and it was literally impossible to fit three carseats into the backseat. To accommodate a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a newborn, we had to upsize to a minivan. There was no lesser option!

Carseats are incredibly wide.

Re: On Car Seats as Contraception

#100

Post by pwinnski » Mon, Aug 22, 2022, 6:21 PM UTC

germinalphrase wrote: post #83

abracadaniel wrote: post #33

They argue against car seat requirements by pointing out that they don't work as well for older kids, but it's precisely the lack of requirements that result in booster seats not performing as well. No one makes any that standout as better, because they aren't required to. Likely, you aren't going to get better performance without using a 5 point harness, but the market for something like that would be far to small t…

Automakers could simple install three additional carseat anchors in the rear seats.

It's not an issue of lacking anchors, in my experience. It's that there doesn't exist (AFAIK) a car wide enough to accommodate three carseats side-by-side. Carseats are very wide.