I didn't watch the Ted talk, I read the chapter in his book. So I don't have the high emotional response. What I see is that child seats are being DOT approved

I didn't watch the Ted talk, I read the chapter in his book. So I don't have the high emotional response. What I see is that child seats are being DOT approved much as if car crash data only had to exist for one vendor selected model for one configuration of passengers and then cars with similar mass distribution were deemed inherently safe for any configuration. Thus, there is nothing in the approval to indicate that whatever approved car seat you buy achieves a safety purpose. I don't really care if Levitt can prove that they are on average less safe. The point that they will have a random distribution between better and worse than nothing for their only purpose is why they are a fraudulent industry that can't be mandated by legislation. I would rather parents that don't care to do research buy nothing than buy the cheapest or prettiest or most adjustable fine avoidance mechanism. Forcing uninformed purchases furthers the average level of safety fraud, pushing the market to converge towards less safety. The chosen system lets DOT look important as they raise that minimum bar to exclude the loopholes used by the very cheapest seats while fighting industry lobbying.. It is like they are looking for a new batch of deaths from encouraging a market for extremely dangerous products to be important again.