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Car Seats as Contraception

journals.uchicago.edu

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Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#61

Post by clusmore »

I also think that modern car seats are one of the main factors driving the adoption of unnecessarily large cars, which have far worse safety outcomes in crashes for everybody except the people inside them.

When I was growing up in the 90s with 2 siblings we had a small hatch. When I had my second child we had to upgrade from a small hatch to an SUV because we simply couldn't fit a car seat behind the driver. Even now, I'm not sure if a third would fit.

Sure, the SUV itself and the extra padding on the car seats might make my children safe in collisions with other big cars, but if we were all still driving hatches then maybe none of that would be necessary.

We are in the stupidest arms race.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#62

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

drdec wrote: post #37
mothballed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I'm not convinced it's actually safer to have kids in the back. I thought that a major reason for placing children in back seat was because of the air bags in the front seat representing a danger to them when they deploy. (But maybe kids don't trigger the weight needed to activate the passenger side air bag anymore?)

You can also usually just turn off the passenger-side airbag. I know there's been a button on every car I've owned to do so, for when you've got something heavy in the front seat that isn't a passenger.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#64

Post by celeritascelery »

beerandt wrote: post #29
mothballed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

> why doing that with schoolbuses still isn't a problem?

Because school buses are very large and heavy and the passengers are high off the roadway. Buses also need to stop at all railroad tracks.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#65

Post by simonsarris »

Is this really true in 2026? Even 10 year old cars are simply big now, and not that expensive. I could believe it in 1990 maybe.

I have 3 babies (ages 0, 2, 4 when we started) in a 2016 Subaru Outback for 1.5 years now and it's been mostly fine. I have 2 "slim" seats from Clek, one is a booster, and it's really not a big deal. I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this.

Buying slim car seats is just not that expensive compared to buying a new car, so we did that. It's hard to believe that people who really want 3 children cannot make it work.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#66

Post by xboxnolifes »

throwway120385 wrote: post #7
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.

If you aren't a slave to your car, you likely live in a walkable area where the cost of a 4-bedroom apartment or house is going to be pretty high. I'm not saying you can't raise kids in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, and when I lived in apartments many families had kids in a 1-bedroom apartment, but it's very tight and many people would consider it a significant hardship for both the kids and the parents. I would also a…

A __3-bedroom apartment__ is considered very tight for raising kids? How many bedrooms do you need to raise kids?

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#67

Post by magarnicle »

simonsarris wrote: post #65

Is this really true in 2026? Even 10 year old cars are simply big now, and not that expensive. I could believe it in 1990 maybe. I have 3 babies (ages 0, 2, 4 when we started) in a 2016 Subaru Outback for 1.5 years now and it's been mostly fine. I have 2 "slim" seats from Clek, one is a booster, and it's really not a big deal. I cannot imagine deciding to give up a child because of a minor inconvenience like this. Bu…

Only quite small cars would have this problem - we had to upgrade from a Honda Jazz/Fit for this reason, but only to a Hyundai i30.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#68

Post by magarnicle »

rimbo789 wrote: post #31

As a parent of 2 a big reason we won’t have a third is the massive step up in transportation costs. Having to get a third car seat would require us to go from our Kia to a minivan. And then there is the cost of the car seat alone. Then there is the time cost of wrangling kids in an out of them. My toddler can easily make it 15 minutes to buckle her in just on her own. A third would mean easily 5 minutes of to get eve…

Really? I fit 3 seats in a Hyundai i30. Not a big or fuel-hungry car.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#69

Post by magarnicle »

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…

Built-in 5-point harnesses in the back seats would be safer than car seats and far easier, but there is a whole industry working against that idea.

Re: Car Seats as Contraception

#70

Post by monero-xmr »

yread wrote: post #55
rimbo789 wrote: post #31

As a parent of 2 a big reason we won’t have a third is the massive step up in transportation costs. Having to get a third car seat would require us to go from our Kia to a minivan. And then there is the cost of the car seat alone. Then there is the time cost of wrangling kids in an out of them. My toddler can easily make it 15 minutes to buckle her in just on her own. A third would mean easily 5 minutes of to get eve…

Daycare is like 3000eur/month for 3+ years. You can probably lease a double decker for that money

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