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Car Seats as Contraception

journals.uchicago.edu

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Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#21

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Aurornis wrote: post #3
mullingitover wrote: post #2

> We show that laws mandating use of child car safety seats significantly reduce birth rates, as many cars cannot fit three child seats in the back seat. Wouldn't the real cause of the depressed birthrates be the requirement to own a car in order to have children? If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats.

The research is about the falloff in family size from 2 children to 3 children. > If you aren't a slave to your vehicle there's no problem with the available space for car seats. The abstract says the effect is limited to households with a car.

I think the car is a proxy/correlation for a level of wealth. If you make little enough the marginal cost of the next kid "seems" cheap because you basically make it back in state benefits in a lot of cases.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#22

Post by mothballed »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #20
mothballed wrote: post #5

The law in my state doesn't require car seats be in the back if it's full or not possible. IIRC they also aren't required if there's no more room. I put my kid up front in my truck that had zero back seats, only a couple people said anything and I told them to pound sand, it certainly wasn't illegal.

That seems reasonable. Which state do you live in?

AZ

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#23

Post by RIMR »

daft_pink wrote: post #10

Correlation does not equal causation. I feel this study shows correlation, but fails to prove any associated causation. Maybe people just avoid 3 kids, because it’s hard enough raising one or two kids.

It is also the number at which your reproduction exceeds that of only replacing your own life. This is very important to some parents to leave the world with more people in it.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#25

Post by waynecochran »

TZubiri wrote: post #16

I thought this was going to be about a car being uncomfortable to have sex in. Such a car would make for a great product to sell to parents of teenagers, so you can lend them the car but at least make it difficult to fornicate without consent of the king.

That was immediately my thought.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#26

Post by cucumber3732842 »

randerson wrote: post #19
mothballed wrote: post #5

The law in my state doesn't require car seats be in the back if it's full or not possible. IIRC they also aren't required if there's no more room. I put my kid up front in my truck that had zero back seats, only a couple people said anything and I told them to pound sand, it certainly wasn't illegal.

Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat…

>Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat (which will be close to the dashboard) with enough force to snap their spine.

He already said he told people who were hand wringing to pound sand. What's the point of more hand wringing?

Also, trucks from the 90s typically even have passenger airbags.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#28

Post by cucumber3732842 »

TZubiri wrote: post #16

I thought this was going to be about a car being uncomfortable to have sex in. Such a car would make for a great product to sell to parents of teenagers, so you can lend them the car but at least make it difficult to fornicate without consent of the king.

When did any of that ever stop teenagers?

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#29

Post by beerandt »

mothballed wrote: post #18
aaronax wrote: post #13

(Have 3yo and 1yo, another one the way, goal is 4) I have often thought that car seats are one of the major drags of modern parenting. This study apparently (I don't have time to read it, too busy with kids lmao!) confirms my suspicions. It is unfortunate that every policy change around them is trading some amount of convenience for every smaller risk eliminations. It is essentially impossible to say perfectly ration…

I had a vehicle with no back seats when my child was in a car seat. It was great because I could attend to them while driving. Since there were no back seats they could not cite me as it was an exception to the law. I'm not convinced it's actually safer to have kids in the back. Sure they're safer in an accident, but when I drove another car with rear seats I found myself constantly looking back to deal with the chil…

This common sense mindset would invalidate so many 'safety' laws and I'm all for it.

Studies make so many invalid assumptions (and usually don't even state them) to force the data / statistics to fit clean a/b or null testing.

But to put a dent in the status quo, we really need a greenlight to just dump however many kids in the back again, no matter the number of kids or seatbelts.

And before anyone gut reacts to this- ask yourself why doing that with schoolbuses still isn't a problem?

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