11 ms·

Is there any data that says secondhand car seats aren’t safe?

139 points by luu 7y ago

wahern 7y ago
> As recently as October 2018, Target’s trade-in website claimed, “Used car seats shouldn’t be sold or given away, since they expire every six years and regulations change constantly.” This hints to at least one good reason: so defective designs or models don't linger too long. Similarly, manufacturers have an interest, a priori, in discouraging a second-hand market to limit their exposure if and when any defects are found, especially if they lead to injuries. Of course, the most important reason is almost certainly because planned obsolescence leads to more sales. > Instead of destroying 500,000 used seats over the years, Target could have safely marketed them to emerging markets. They would’ve sold, and many children would be safer because their parents had access to a secondhand market. Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. I think drug companies do dump pharmaceuticals near their expiration date into cheaper markets. But the drugs aren't actually expired, and they're certainly not used. Interestingly, AFAIU the expiration date for many drugs is also largely pulled out of thin air; they often retain their potency for many years after the supposed expiration date. OTOH, proving efficacy can be more difficult and risky.
- georgeecollins 7y ago
  Yeah but did you ever read the chapter of Freakonomics about car seats? Car seats improve children's chance of injury over every case except the one where kids sit in the back seat with an old fashioned seat belt on. Compared to that, car seats perform about the same. (Note: I get that an infant can't use a regular seat belt.) It's true that car seats have been great for safety. But a lot of that (if not most) is that it forced parents to put their kids in the back seat of the car (much safer) in most cases and always secured by a belt. The idea that a newer car seat has some magic safety improvement that is say, more important then the difference in safety between a mini-van and a two seat sportscar is a fallacy. If you are worried about your kid being safe in a car, put them in a minivan and have them sit in a car seat in the middle back. Even with an old car seat that is very safe.
  - drtillberg 7y ago
    For families with 3 children, the child car seat requirement generally pushes them into a minivan because you can't install car seats 3 to a row, so you need an extra row. And then you still max out at 1 friend instead of 3, because even a minivan won't seat more than 4 child car seats. It's also not magic getting your children into a car seat. It takes time, the angles are awkward, and when parked on a busy road it often exposes parents to traffic. I've only heard of 1 fatal accident through where a parent was struck by a car (sideswiped) while fiddling with a car seat.
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      I have a crazy theory that car sizes (and prices) are what are limiting the number of children people have. It would be ridiculous to try to transport a five child family these days.
      - jtbayly 7y ago
        The USA is economically oppressive to larger families in many ways like this.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I would go with lack of parental leave, decreasing income security, stagnating wages, student loan debt, enormous healthcare expenses, and need for dual income households as well as being in school for longer periods of time to secure good jobs over car sizes and prices. Not to mention minivans exist and aren’t that expensive compared to cars.
      - sjg007 7y ago
        Well you can buy a suburban and an eight passenger minivan.. they do still sell 15 passenger vans as well....
    - jefftk 7y ago
      I often do three car seats in a row across the back of midsized cars like the Toyota Corolla. It's very tight, but it works. (You do need relatively compact seats; I'm using the cheapest Walmart seat)
- sjg007 7y ago
  Car seats are regulated by the Feds. They get recalled. If a second hand car seat is recalled it shouldn’t be sold etc...
- jedimastert 7y ago
  > Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. This is, I will point out, the same reason "expired" or almost "expired" produce and groceries get destroyed or thrown away instead of donated. In almost all cases the food is still perfectly safe, and most stores assume (incorrectly) that they would be liable for any illness caused by "expired" food. But the optics would also look terrible because most people just don't realize that food doesn't magically go from perfectly safe to toxic the instant it does beyond the date written on the package. I have a friend who runs a homeless charity and she tried to get the (many) grocery stored to donate constantly. Almost all of the chains have corporate policy against it for liability reasons.
  - newshorts 7y ago
    I used to work at a shelter. We had an “in” with a local grocery store. They would throw the leftover food out by placing it in nicely on the back dock instead of the dumpster.
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Places that forbid this tend to do so because it's the only way to cure rampant theft. "Oh, I thought that £500 of fresh rump steak was expired. Whoops. No, I have no idea how my old school friend happened to know I'd made that mistake so as to arrive in a truck less than a minute after I carefully stacked the boxes of steak in the disposal area". For stuff with a Best Before rather than Use By tag all the cheaper stores I use just mark it down. Crisps that "expired" two months ago probably aren't as crisp as they intended (moisture in the outside air will very slowly penetrate even the metalized foil container) but they're not dangerous, if your budget is tight maybe 50% off is a good deal on those crisps. For Use By stuff yeah, probably eating these cooked chicken slices on Tuesday after they expired on Monday won't kill me, but I get where they're coming from. It's about margin, just like on aircraft. If you're on a twin-engine jetliner and it loses the left engine in cruise, that plane is still fine, it was designed to handle the stress of maximum power take-off on a single engine every time. It could definitely still go to your destination. But it won't - it's completely understandable that we always treat that plane as an emergency and try to get it down immediately for the sake of safety margin.
- charles_f 7y ago
  > But the drugs aren't actually expired, and they're certainly not used Note that author is referring to used car seats, not expired ones. Comparing used car seats to used drugs is not very fair. A closer sense for "used" when referring to a car seat compared to what "used" means for a drug would probably be one that was involved in a crash, and that is not what the article is mentioning. But to your point this won't happen. Besides the supply chain nightmare and risks if the seats were effectively involved in a crash, that would make the whole campaign moot: how do you justify why you should throw a used car seat away and then send it to another country? And we most certainly don't want that if the goal is to sell AMAP car seats
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  >defective designs [...] don't linger too long Shouldn't defective designs be recalled right away instead of at expiration date?
  - ovi256 7y ago
    Customers don't comply 100% with a safety recall. This reduced manufacturer liability by reducing the lingering.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    If it is past the expiration date they don't have to recall it at all. Saves a lot of money when nearly every car seat ever made was recalled at some point (or so it seems - as a parent every carseat I've ever bought has been recalled at some time within 5 years).
- 2rsf 7y ago
  > they often retain their potency for many years after the supposed expiration date With the exception of few drugs that do go bad "often" is not good enough, AFAIU it's a statistical game of certainties- I want to be X% certain that the drug has Y% of its potency
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  >Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. A university I worked for had a partnership with a nearby inner city elementary school. University employees did a lot of volunteer work for the elementary school, everything from weekend landscaping to weekday reading for storytime. When we upgraded a lab full of computers, we donated the older computers to the elementary school. Reinstalled the OS and productivity software, set up the network, and did all the work on physical placement, even cleaned the storage room being turned into a computer lab. These weren't obsolete machines, they just weren't cutting edge. Two weeks after the new computers were setup the local paper ran a front page (thankfully below the fold) article on how we had dumped junk computers on the school. All of the quotes from the teachers were anonymous but it was obvious they were upset they didn't get the newest toys to play with. The e-rate scandal a few years previous hit the school and others like it pretty hard so until then they were accustomed to getting everything new-in-box. The principal did call the university to apologize and express gratitude for the computers but the damage to the university's public image and the partnership between the schools was already done. The volunteer work continued but it faded out over the next couple of years.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    The company I'm working for is in the food industry. We used to give away overproduction and returns (returned for "print on the packaging is not 100% on point" nothing wrong with the goods) to local kindergartens and schools and clubs and whoever asked for free. We stopped that after people were complaining that their received goods did not have a good print or that the print somehow was "off-topic" or whatever. Now everything that gets returned is going straight to the trash.
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  What bothers me more about "expiry" of car seats is that this logic isn't applied to other toys. My parents gave me some Duplos from the 80s. After looking it up, the red and yellow bricks contained unsafe levels of cadmium. Legos are often advertised as being lifetime toys that can be passed down but this just isn't true. I'd like to see mandatory UPC codes etched into toys/car seats/strollers so that they can be identified for recalls. That way this nonsense about 'expiry' of otherwise durable goods can stop while overall safety improves.
  - gnode 7y ago
    Going beyond the obvious motive of child car seat manufacturers wanting to undermine the second-hand market, I expect design flaws could also play a part. In case there is a flaw, e.g. poisons; unexpected decay of material strength; mold growth, then it's good to reduce the number of the old product around in case it's discovered, and a lawsuit manifests. Possibly the expiration could even mitigate damages in case of liability. While superfluous product expiry is generally useful for selling more of any kind of product, a safety device for children is exactly the kind of product where mitigating liability from latent design flaws would be desirable for a manufacturer.
- turk73 7y ago
  As soon as you have kids you recognize a pattern: Every car seat, stroller, high chair, and crib gets recalled. Every single one. The companies want to eliminate the secondary market for these products and they are damn good at it using lawyers. This is massive bullshit and it contributes to a massive waste stream. It is a big reason why having a family is so damned un-affordable. What if cars expired? I used the same hand me down car seats for both my kids. I also bought one actual car seat of the larger variety at one point because the technology actually did improve some. The booster seats chap my hide--an uncomfortable hunk of plastic for a kid to sit on so I can be legally compliant but are a stone-cold bitch for the kid to sit on during long car rides. As soon as my kids looked big enough I tossed those booster seats in the trash where they belong. It is all safety meddling by a bunch of busy-body twats who either have a profit motive or just enjoy authoritarianism. It is the same mindset that gave us Prohibition. Saving us from ourselves only to create a much bigger problem in the long run. How many times have we seen that play out? Alcohol (we sort of of fixed that one, yay), drugs (cartels--been to Mexico lately?), healthcare (the costs, my word!) , automobiles (how many more airbags do we need?), student loans (but everyone should be able to go to college and become debt slaves), housing bubble (everyone should be able to afford to buy their own home), you name it, the meddlers have wrecked it. I pretty much lay all of it at the feet of do-gooding Democrats, but I know that Republicans are equally to blame because they do it for banker profit motive reasons rather than misguided altruism.
niknikson 7y ago
Huge kudos to the author for taking the time to investigate this issue. Interestingly in the book Freakeconomics from 2005 they did an analysis on car seats and found that after 2 years of age they don't make much of a difference. During their study the came across the same type of behavior from child seat manufacturers - ignoring requests for information.
- jzl 7y ago
  The Freakonomics guys are notorious for using shoddy research, jumping to bad conclusions, and generally publishing provocative conclusions just for the sake of provocativeness that don't hold up to even a whiff of debunking. I rolled my eyeballs through the entire book. Good rebuttal of the car seat story here, with lots of links: https://thecarseatlady.com/freakonomics-fallacy-an-economist-or-a-pediatrician-who-would-you-trust-to-keep-your-child-safe/ https://thecarseatlady.com/freakonomics-fallacy-an-economist...
  - Retric 7y ago
    ‘The car seat lady’ looks like a rather biased source. Which does not mean their wrong. This is one of the few unrelated looks into the topic and it shows relatively minimal benefits. Likely still worth it, but less critical than generally perceived. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_about_child_carseats https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo...
    - NLips 7y ago
      That’s a terrible talk! In particular, why on earth is the car seat moving forwards in the crash test? Most car seats I’ve seen are essentially bolted to the rest of the seat. Is this a Europe / USA thing?
      - Retric 7y ago
        It’s common for car seats to be attached to a seat belt which adds some play. From a random manual, page 16 gives an example using seat belts: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/D1xDQvLJ3iS.pdf https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/D1xDQvLJ3iS... The LATCH system is seems to be bolted on, but not always used. It’s still going to bounce in a crash as the seat cushion has a lot of give under these forces. Further, in terms of real world companions you need to understand people don’t nessisarily use safety equipment correctly especially if it’s more time consuming. Comparing LATCh attachment vs seat belts is a whole other discussion.
analog31 7y ago
I've conveniently blotted the details out of my memory, but nowadays you have to go through multiple car seats per kid, because there are different types for different age groups. Multiply by how many kids you have. Multiply by how many cars you have in your family. Truth be told, there are plenty of secondhand car seats out there. For one thing, they get handed down from one kid to the next within a family. For another, relatives and neighbors share them. It's like any secondhand item... something could always go wrong.
- shantly 7y ago
  They're also supposed to be in them until they're 10 or so, these days. You're likely to go through 3-4 seats per kid—infant (often also a carrier), toddler, then either a larger car seat and later a booster or a convertible booster that can do both. And yeah, you absolutely hand them down to younger kids. Throwing out old car seats is nuts and not something people actually do unless 1) they have more money than you know what to do with, or 2) the seat looks like it's in bad shape or reveals on inspection that it's damaged or deteriorating, or 3) you just don't know anyone who could use it.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    They’re supposed to be in a car seat < 50 lbs, and a booster until the seatbelt fits comfortably across their shoulder (10-12)
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    >Throwing out old car seats is nuts and not something people actually do Yes they do. Target alone is a counterexample over 500,000 strong. Fear is a powerful motivator. My wife and I are constantly lamenting the trading on Americans’ obsession with child safety, but even we found this article allaying some lingering fear that there might be some unknown reason to stop using the seat we picked up off the side of the road.
    - silencio 7y ago
      The counterexample needs a huge caveat. Outside of one-off registry discounts and occasional manufacturer end-of year/model/design sales, the Target trade-in deal is one of the best deals you can get on baby/child gear. Parents in my local groups will hold on to seats from accidents and more, just to get or give away these 20% coupons.
ceejayoz 7y ago
I'd happily use a second-hand expired set from a trusted friend. Off something like Craigslist, I'd worry about it having being in an undisclosed car accident.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Are the forces in an accident strong enough to damage an engineered car seat? It's already protected by crumple zones, and I'd expect the car seat to be more robust than the occupant.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    NHTSA says yes. https://www.nhtsa.gov/car-seats-and-booster-seats/car-seat-use-after-crash https://www.nhtsa.gov/car-seats-and-booster-seats/car-seat-u... Same thing for bike helmets - after a serious shock, they should be replaced, even if there's not visible damage.
    - dehrmann 7y ago
      Fair enough. I buy it more for bike helmets, though, since there's a good chance that helmet hit road or metal.
      - cbo100 7y ago
        And in an accident a car seat has all the force transferred through just 2-3 points of contact with the seat belt or isofix points. I would replace my kids seats after any accident with airbags or pretensioners firing.
      - PeterStuer 7y ago
        The damage on a bike helmet that has hit the road or metal in an accident will be very obvious in even the most cursory visual inspection.
    - swimfar 7y ago
      But is that based on research performed, or just a "better safe than sorry" statement? Have they (or anyone) ever seen a seat fail prematurely or perform worse due to being involved in multiple accidents? That page doesn't have any more information other than that statement. I'm having a difficult time imagining what parts of a car seat would be damaged during a crash (where the seat itself is not impacted). One exception is if car seats are designed to deform, crush, etc. to absorb energy, like a bike helmet is. But I've never seen anything like that. Also, when trying to decide whether a second-hand car seat is safe, you're multiplying the probability of a seat being damaged in an accident, by the probability that the damage will significantly reduce the safety of the seat, by the probability that the seat being sold was in an accident. I understand if a parent would rather just buy a new one and not worry about this. But I see this as being a near-zero risk. edit: I see that some child car seats do use EPP foam, which could possibly get permanently compressed during a severe impact.
codeulike 7y ago
It was suggested to us (can't remember where from) that a second hand car seat might have been dropped or damaged in some un-noticable way and so would not be as strong as it needed to be. So it wasn't so much about expiration dates as it was about knowing what had happened to that particular seat. I was kindof unconvinced by the idea of unnoticable damage* but then its your kids so you shrug and fork out for a new seat. That said, in the UK there's plenty of second hand car seats changing hands via ebay etc. * incidentally I've heard the same thing said about bicycle helmets, which use similar materials (plastic, polystyrene)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dehrmann 7y ago
  > but then its your kids so you shrug and fork out for a new seat And marketers know this.
  - codeulike 7y ago
    Oh yes. And I know they know this. But kids.
- cellular 7y ago
  I can't imagine how a dropped car seat could break. All the ones I've seen are made from very very strong plastic.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    Weaken internal structures down to a microscopic level that ultimately renders the car seat weaker to handle a major accident
    - jeffdavis 7y ago
      I guess we go straight to the factory to maintain a chain of custody?
sjg007 7y ago
Seems like the FTC should get involved for deceptive marketing...
whoopdedo 7y ago
> so long as a seat hasn’t been in a crash or otherwise doesn’t exhibit any damage That seems a sufficient reason not to accept a used seat from someone you don't know. Another reason for concern that wasn't mentioned is needing to know if the product was recalled. Upshot being there's likely no reason to throw away an older car seat. You probably still don't want to shop for one at a yard sale.
- underwater 7y ago
  What kind of non-obvious damage could a car seat suffer in an accident? They're fairly simple devices.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Internal structure damage reducing effectiveness in future impacts. There are shock stickers shippers use to verify if shipments have exceeded certain shock thresholds; car seats with a similar feature would allow for a second hand market (as data shows car seats should be safe to use for 20-30 years, if they haven’t been exposed to stresses from an accident). You just need enough customers to ask for it, or regulation.
    - jakobegger 7y ago
      What kind of "internal structure damage" would that be? Most car seats aren't really that complex, and when you take apart a car seat (eg to wash the cover) you can see all the "internal structure", and it would be very obvious if something was damaged in a crash.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Stress on the plastic structure, which usually isn’t exposed even with the cover off. Get a car seat from a moderate or severe accident, and cut it in half; you’ll be able to see the damage from the forces involved.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
CodeWriter23 7y ago
Having used a second hand booster seat for my daughter, I can testify sun damage is a real thing. I could not pass it on in good conscience. And we replaced it with a more modern and much sturdier version. That’s not to say I think all seats should be summarily discarded after an expiration date because some people (like me) don’t garage their car. I’m saying there is some nuance to this choice.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  A booster seat is just a piece of plastic that's supposed to raise your kid to the correct height for the seat belt, right? Does it really matter if the material is still sturdy in a booster seat?
  - CodeWriter23 7y ago
    If it cracks into knife-like shards, I think that would matter. The updated booster however was like a car seat. The car's seat belts held the seat which in turn had a 5-point harness.
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    Our booster seats were just seat-shaped Polystyrene blocks with a cloth cover. Worked perfectly fine.
tssva 7y ago
The explanation I have always heard is that car seats utilize EPP and EPS both of which breakdown to some degree when exposed to UV light.
- IndrekR 7y ago
  EPP (extruded polypropylene) and EPS (extruded polystyrene) are not exposed to the sunlight in car seat's construction. Also, if those break down it will be surface-first decomposition and very visible/noticeable.
  - tssva 7y ago
    In the car seats I had the EPP and EPS were in positions that they could be exposed to sunlight.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  I've always heard that car windows filter out UV light.
  - tssva 7y ago
    Windshields usually filter UV light, but the other car windows usually don't. In addition a large number of infant car seats consist of a base unit which always remains fastened in the car and a removeable unit which holds the infant. The removeable unit often can also fit into a stroller unit. When used in the stroller the EPP and EPS have a even greater chance of being exposed to UV light.
aurizon 7y ago
An almost perfect racket, the product has a low intrinsic cost and a long life - how can we make them obsolete? Kid based FUD is sown all over their web pages and package inserts, and we all love kids - right?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I'm currently buying a new seat for our kid (as she's outgrowing the second-hand one we had before). Even with ISOFIX and i-Size standards in the EU, it's an ordeal. The space is ridiculously overcrowded (just how many variants of a car seat can one make?!), seats themselves are near-impossible to compare against each other, and every site keeps reminding you that your kid's life hangs on your purchase. And then there's car compatibility issue - we just discovered that even though our Xsara Picasso has ISOFIX mount points, it doesn't accept the support leg (because of floor-level storage compartments) and seemingly doesn't have a top tether mounting point either. One has to wonder why they even bothered to add the ISOFIX mounts in the first place. At this point I'd gladly pay $100 or more for some expert to just recommend a safe seat for our car. I already wasted much more than that on research in terms of opportunity cost. (please excuse the rant)
  - speedupmate 7y ago
    just take the science out of it, carseat for a kid does nothing more than to rise them to suitable seatbelt height or makes the seatbelt usable for really young kids. Isofix does not have to have a leg etc could be just bars holding the seat at place, thats its only benefit it keeps the object attached to isofix in place in case of a accident. It will not fly around the car as it is attached to it thus provides more safety. At the end if the crash is huge then newtons laws apply a bigger mass will just run everything over, does not matter if it is secured or not you just can't beat a bigger mass.
  - newshorts 7y ago
    Just ask reddit... That’s how I found our car seat. I was looking for safety and fit, but also what people seemed to like the best. Forums are great for stuff like this.
sideshowb 7y ago
Yeah, so I was never really sure what a new car seat would gain us in our second hand car... And this from someone who just spent good money replacing the rock and roll bed in a campervan to improve seatbelt safety for the little one. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
silencio 7y ago
This doesn't take into account seat maintenance and daily use, it feels like. We have two car seats with 9 year expirations. The older seat is almost 3 years old. I doubt it's going to make it past 5-6. My first kid has had diaper blowouts, vomiting episodes, messy eating episodes, potty training accidents, and more - all into the same seat. It's looking pretty grungy. I'm pretty paranoid about following manufacturer instructions for cleaning, but I know plenty of parents that bleach and steam clean and generally don't follow instructions for car seat care. Gently used seats that were well taken care of - those should absolutely be reused, and you don't have to get into developing nations to find someone that can use it. But not all seats, honestly - especially not with how much we as a society are using car seats nowadays. My almost-3 year old is still rear facing in a convertible seat that should last her at least another year.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Old colleague of mine used to put the (small) seat in the dishwasher with the top shelve removed.
crb002 7y ago
Might be more safe as new models haven’t gotten recalled for defects yet.
acd 7y ago
I recently sold a car seat just to learn about the second hand age of cars seats matter. But the environment matter a lot too. There ought to be crash test by government agencies comparing new and old car seats. Similar trend with children carriages. Shifting from sturdy iron constructions towards light weight aluminum materials. Difference being iron construction lasts long good for the environment, aluminum one to two children buy and throw.
- HenryBemis 7y ago
  > There ought to be crash test by government agencies comparing new and old car seats Knowing how corporations rule the USA, the moment a government agency will start doing this testing/comparison, the carseat manufacturers will start lobbying (or as we know it in the rest of the world: "bribing politicians to preserve and increase their profits"), and we will most likely not see any solid results. Knowing Sweden and how they value life over $$$$, my money is with them instead of a shady "Carseat Media LLC". It looks like it's fearmongering "hey what is more important? $500 or the life of your child?"
- exhilaration 7y ago
  Consumer Reports does crash tests -- well simulated crash tests, they've got a rig that accelerates the seat to see how a dummy of a child moves during crash-like conditions.
dragonwriter 7y ago
Age may or may not be a problem, but several of the people I know that have sold car seats have done so specifically because they were replacing them after they were in a vehicle collision. (Which probably also involves insurance fraud, since insurers will pay for that but require—easily faked—evidence that the seat has been rendered unsaleable, e.g., photo of it with the straps cut.) Now, maybe they were all being excessively cautious in the replacement, but...
brusselssprouts 7y ago
Evenflo has a car seat that is designed to last 10 years. This seems pretty reasonable, after this point I assume you'd want access to the latest technology and safety standards, and plastics do age some over time. https://www.evenflo.com/gold/ https://www.evenflo.com/gold/
vectorEQ 7y ago
“Used car seats shouldn’t be sold or given away, since they expire every six years and regulations change constantly.” tell me, how many of you are riding with expired seats? u criminals!
- detritus 7y ago
  Apparently, as the moment, about 99% of people in Italy with car seats are, due to some recently-introduced legislation. The legislation requires some electronic alarm to prevent infants being locked in cars, but apparently vendors aren't up to speed and the law was brought in anyway,leaving everyone either breaking the law or not able to drive their children... .
leecarraher 7y ago
They seem to not sell used baby gates at second hand baby stores either. id guess for a similar reason and that being that they don't want to claim liability in asserting the item was in original working order.
Amygaz 7y ago
Just the fact that you don’t know its history, especially if that car seat has been in a crash before, should be enough of a reason.
Digory 7y ago
This is about minimizing litigation risk, from the manufacturer side and the parent side. The manufacturers want to limit their exposure to any one design. If this year's cost-saving design unexpectedly doesn't work, they want to budget and cut off liability. And, as a parent, if the seat is poorly designed in a way that it ever harms my child, I want to be able to sue the manufacturer.

139 points by luu 7y ago

> As recently as October 2018, Target’s trade-in website claimed, “Used car seats shouldn’t be sold or given away, since they expire every six years and regulations change constantly.” This hints to at least one good reason: so defective designs or models don't linger too long. Similarly, manufacturers have an interest, a priori, in discouraging a second-hand market to limit their exposure if and when any defects are found, especially if they lead to injuries. Of course, the most important reason is almost certainly because planned obsolescence leads to more sales. > Instead of destroying 500,000 used seats over the years, Target could have safely marketed them to emerging markets. They would’ve sold, and many children would be safer because their parents had access to a secondhand market. Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. I think drug companies do dump pharmaceuticals near their expiration date into cheaper markets. But the drugs aren't actually expired, and they're certainly not used. Interestingly, AFAIU the expiration date for many drugs is also largely pulled out of thin air; they often retain their potency for many years after the supposed expiration date. OTOH, proving efficacy can be more difficult and risky.

georgeecollins 7y ago
Yeah but did you ever read the chapter of Freakonomics about car seats? Car seats improve children's chance of injury over every case except the one where kids sit in the back seat with an old fashioned seat belt on. Compared to that, car seats perform about the same. (Note: I get that an infant can't use a regular seat belt.) It's true that car seats have been great for safety. But a lot of that (if not most) is that it forced parents to put their kids in the back seat of the car (much safer) in most cases and always secured by a belt. The idea that a newer car seat has some magic safety improvement that is say, more important then the difference in safety between a mini-van and a two seat sportscar is a fallacy. If you are worried about your kid being safe in a car, put them in a minivan and have them sit in a car seat in the middle back. Even with an old car seat that is very safe.
- drtillberg 7y ago
  For families with 3 children, the child car seat requirement generally pushes them into a minivan because you can't install car seats 3 to a row, so you need an extra row. And then you still max out at 1 friend instead of 3, because even a minivan won't seat more than 4 child car seats. It's also not magic getting your children into a car seat. It takes time, the angles are awkward, and when parked on a busy road it often exposes parents to traffic. I've only heard of 1 fatal accident through where a parent was struck by a car (sideswiped) while fiddling with a car seat.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    I have a crazy theory that car sizes (and prices) are what are limiting the number of children people have. It would be ridiculous to try to transport a five child family these days.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      The USA is economically oppressive to larger families in many ways like this.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      I would go with lack of parental leave, decreasing income security, stagnating wages, student loan debt, enormous healthcare expenses, and need for dual income households as well as being in school for longer periods of time to secure good jobs over car sizes and prices. Not to mention minivans exist and aren’t that expensive compared to cars.
    - sjg007 7y ago
      Well you can buy a suburban and an eight passenger minivan.. they do still sell 15 passenger vans as well....
  - jefftk 7y ago
    I often do three car seats in a row across the back of midsized cars like the Toyota Corolla. It's very tight, but it works. (You do need relatively compact seats; I'm using the cheapest Walmart seat)
sjg007 7y ago
Car seats are regulated by the Feds. They get recalled. If a second hand car seat is recalled it shouldn’t be sold etc...
jedimastert 7y ago
> Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. This is, I will point out, the same reason "expired" or almost "expired" produce and groceries get destroyed or thrown away instead of donated. In almost all cases the food is still perfectly safe, and most stores assume (incorrectly) that they would be liable for any illness caused by "expired" food. But the optics would also look terrible because most people just don't realize that food doesn't magically go from perfectly safe to toxic the instant it does beyond the date written on the package. I have a friend who runs a homeless charity and she tried to get the (many) grocery stored to donate constantly. Almost all of the chains have corporate policy against it for liability reasons.
- newshorts 7y ago
  I used to work at a shelter. We had an “in” with a local grocery store. They would throw the leftover food out by placing it in nicely on the back dock instead of the dumpster.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Places that forbid this tend to do so because it's the only way to cure rampant theft. "Oh, I thought that £500 of fresh rump steak was expired. Whoops. No, I have no idea how my old school friend happened to know I'd made that mistake so as to arrive in a truck less than a minute after I carefully stacked the boxes of steak in the disposal area". For stuff with a Best Before rather than Use By tag all the cheaper stores I use just mark it down. Crisps that "expired" two months ago probably aren't as crisp as they intended (moisture in the outside air will very slowly penetrate even the metalized foil container) but they're not dangerous, if your budget is tight maybe 50% off is a good deal on those crisps. For Use By stuff yeah, probably eating these cooked chicken slices on Tuesday after they expired on Monday won't kill me, but I get where they're coming from. It's about margin, just like on aircraft. If you're on a twin-engine jetliner and it loses the left engine in cruise, that plane is still fine, it was designed to handle the stress of maximum power take-off on a single engine every time. It could definitely still go to your destination. But it won't - it's completely understandable that we always treat that plane as an emergency and try to get it down immediately for the sake of safety margin.
charles_f 7y ago
> But the drugs aren't actually expired, and they're certainly not used Note that author is referring to used car seats, not expired ones. Comparing used car seats to used drugs is not very fair. A closer sense for "used" when referring to a car seat compared to what "used" means for a drug would probably be one that was involved in a crash, and that is not what the article is mentioning. But to your point this won't happen. Besides the supply chain nightmare and risks if the seats were effectively involved in a crash, that would make the whole campaign moot: how do you justify why you should throw a used car seat away and then send it to another country? And we most certainly don't want that if the goal is to sell AMAP car seats
NullPrefix 7y ago
>defective designs [...] don't linger too long Shouldn't defective designs be recalled right away instead of at expiration date?
- ovi256 7y ago
  Customers don't comply 100% with a safety recall. This reduced manufacturer liability by reducing the lingering.
- bluGill 7y ago
  If it is past the expiration date they don't have to recall it at all. Saves a lot of money when nearly every car seat ever made was recalled at some point (or so it seems - as a parent every carseat I've ever bought has been recalled at some time within 5 years).
2rsf 7y ago
> they often retain their potency for many years after the supposed expiration date With the exception of few drugs that do go bad "often" is not good enough, AFAIU it's a statistical game of certainties- I want to be X% certain that the drug has Y% of its potency
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
>Hahahaha. That would never happen. The optics would be horrible, both domestically and internationally. Such a good deed could never go unpunished. A university I worked for had a partnership with a nearby inner city elementary school. University employees did a lot of volunteer work for the elementary school, everything from weekend landscaping to weekday reading for storytime. When we upgraded a lab full of computers, we donated the older computers to the elementary school. Reinstalled the OS and productivity software, set up the network, and did all the work on physical placement, even cleaned the storage room being turned into a computer lab. These weren't obsolete machines, they just weren't cutting edge. Two weeks after the new computers were setup the local paper ran a front page (thankfully below the fold) article on how we had dumped junk computers on the school. All of the quotes from the teachers were anonymous but it was obvious they were upset they didn't get the newest toys to play with. The e-rate scandal a few years previous hit the school and others like it pretty hard so until then they were accustomed to getting everything new-in-box. The principal did call the university to apologize and express gratitude for the computers but the damage to the university's public image and the partnership between the schools was already done. The volunteer work continued but it faded out over the next couple of years.
- martin_a 7y ago
  The company I'm working for is in the food industry. We used to give away overproduction and returns (returned for "print on the packaging is not 100% on point" nothing wrong with the goods) to local kindergartens and schools and clubs and whoever asked for free. We stopped that after people were complaining that their received goods did not have a good print or that the print somehow was "off-topic" or whatever. Now everything that gets returned is going straight to the trash.
CoolGuySteve 7y ago
What bothers me more about "expiry" of car seats is that this logic isn't applied to other toys. My parents gave me some Duplos from the 80s. After looking it up, the red and yellow bricks contained unsafe levels of cadmium. Legos are often advertised as being lifetime toys that can be passed down but this just isn't true. I'd like to see mandatory UPC codes etched into toys/car seats/strollers so that they can be identified for recalls. That way this nonsense about 'expiry' of otherwise durable goods can stop while overall safety improves.
- gnode 7y ago
  Going beyond the obvious motive of child car seat manufacturers wanting to undermine the second-hand market, I expect design flaws could also play a part. In case there is a flaw, e.g. poisons; unexpected decay of material strength; mold growth, then it's good to reduce the number of the old product around in case it's discovered, and a lawsuit manifests. Possibly the expiration could even mitigate damages in case of liability. While superfluous product expiry is generally useful for selling more of any kind of product, a safety device for children is exactly the kind of product where mitigating liability from latent design flaws would be desirable for a manufacturer.
turk73 7y ago
As soon as you have kids you recognize a pattern: Every car seat, stroller, high chair, and crib gets recalled. Every single one. The companies want to eliminate the secondary market for these products and they are damn good at it using lawyers. This is massive bullshit and it contributes to a massive waste stream. It is a big reason why having a family is so damned un-affordable. What if cars expired? I used the same hand me down car seats for both my kids. I also bought one actual car seat of the larger variety at one point because the technology actually did improve some. The booster seats chap my hide--an uncomfortable hunk of plastic for a kid to sit on so I can be legally compliant but are a stone-cold bitch for the kid to sit on during long car rides. As soon as my kids looked big enough I tossed those booster seats in the trash where they belong. It is all safety meddling by a bunch of busy-body twats who either have a profit motive or just enjoy authoritarianism. It is the same mindset that gave us Prohibition. Saving us from ourselves only to create a much bigger problem in the long run. How many times have we seen that play out? Alcohol (we sort of of fixed that one, yay), drugs (cartels--been to Mexico lately?), healthcare (the costs, my word!) , automobiles (how many more airbags do we need?), student loans (but everyone should be able to go to college and become debt slaves), housing bubble (everyone should be able to afford to buy their own home), you name it, the meddlers have wrecked it. I pretty much lay all of it at the feet of do-gooding Democrats, but I know that Republicans are equally to blame because they do it for banker profit motive reasons rather than misguided altruism.

niknikson 7y ago

Huge kudos to the author for taking the time to investigate this issue. Interestingly in the book Freakeconomics from 2005 they did an analysis on car seats and found that after 2 years of age they don't make much of a difference. During their study the came across the same type of behavior from child seat manufacturers - ignoring requests for information.

jzl 7y ago
The Freakonomics guys are notorious for using shoddy research, jumping to bad conclusions, and generally publishing provocative conclusions just for the sake of provocativeness that don't hold up to even a whiff of debunking. I rolled my eyeballs through the entire book. Good rebuttal of the car seat story here, with lots of links: https://thecarseatlady.com/freakonomics-fallacy-an-economist-or-a-pediatrician-who-would-you-trust-to-keep-your-child-safe/ https://thecarseatlady.com/freakonomics-fallacy-an-economist...
- Retric 7y ago
  ‘The car seat lady’ looks like a rather biased source. Which does not mean their wrong. This is one of the few unrelated looks into the topic and it shows relatively minimal benefits. Likely still worth it, but less critical than generally perceived. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_about_child_carseats https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo...
  - NLips 7y ago
    That’s a terrible talk! In particular, why on earth is the car seat moving forwards in the crash test? Most car seats I’ve seen are essentially bolted to the rest of the seat. Is this a Europe / USA thing?
    - Retric 7y ago
      It’s common for car seats to be attached to a seat belt which adds some play. From a random manual, page 16 gives an example using seat belts: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/D1xDQvLJ3iS.pdf https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/D1xDQvLJ3iS... The LATCH system is seems to be bolted on, but not always used. It’s still going to bounce in a crash as the seat cushion has a lot of give under these forces. Further, in terms of real world companions you need to understand people don’t nessisarily use safety equipment correctly especially if it’s more time consuming. Comparing LATCh attachment vs seat belts is a whole other discussion.

analog31 7y ago

I've conveniently blotted the details out of my memory, but nowadays you have to go through multiple car seats per kid, because there are different types for different age groups. Multiply by how many kids you have. Multiply by how many cars you have in your family. Truth be told, there are plenty of secondhand car seats out there. For one thing, they get handed down from one kid to the next within a family. For another, relatives and neighbors share them. It's like any secondhand item... something could always go wrong.

shantly 7y ago
They're also supposed to be in them until they're 10 or so, these days. You're likely to go through 3-4 seats per kid—infant (often also a carrier), toddler, then either a larger car seat and later a booster or a convertible booster that can do both. And yeah, you absolutely hand them down to younger kids. Throwing out old car seats is nuts and not something people actually do unless 1) they have more money than you know what to do with, or 2) the seat looks like it's in bad shape or reveals on inspection that it's damaged or deteriorating, or 3) you just don't know anyone who could use it.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  They’re supposed to be in a car seat < 50 lbs, and a booster until the seatbelt fits comfortably across their shoulder (10-12)
- jtbayly 7y ago
  >Throwing out old car seats is nuts and not something people actually do Yes they do. Target alone is a counterexample over 500,000 strong. Fear is a powerful motivator. My wife and I are constantly lamenting the trading on Americans’ obsession with child safety, but even we found this article allaying some lingering fear that there might be some unknown reason to stop using the seat we picked up off the side of the road.
  - silencio 7y ago
    The counterexample needs a huge caveat. Outside of one-off registry discounts and occasional manufacturer end-of year/model/design sales, the Target trade-in deal is one of the best deals you can get on baby/child gear. Parents in my local groups will hold on to seats from accidents and more, just to get or give away these 20% coupons.

ceejayoz 7y ago

I'd happily use a second-hand expired set from a trusted friend. Off something like Craigslist, I'd worry about it having being in an undisclosed car accident.

dehrmann 7y ago
Are the forces in an accident strong enough to damage an engineered car seat? It's already protected by crumple zones, and I'd expect the car seat to be more robust than the occupant.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  NHTSA says yes. https://www.nhtsa.gov/car-seats-and-booster-seats/car-seat-use-after-crash https://www.nhtsa.gov/car-seats-and-booster-seats/car-seat-u... Same thing for bike helmets - after a serious shock, they should be replaced, even if there's not visible damage.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Fair enough. I buy it more for bike helmets, though, since there's a good chance that helmet hit road or metal.
    - cbo100 7y ago
      And in an accident a car seat has all the force transferred through just 2-3 points of contact with the seat belt or isofix points. I would replace my kids seats after any accident with airbags or pretensioners firing.
    - PeterStuer 7y ago
      The damage on a bike helmet that has hit the road or metal in an accident will be very obvious in even the most cursory visual inspection.
  - swimfar 7y ago
    But is that based on research performed, or just a "better safe than sorry" statement? Have they (or anyone) ever seen a seat fail prematurely or perform worse due to being involved in multiple accidents? That page doesn't have any more information other than that statement. I'm having a difficult time imagining what parts of a car seat would be damaged during a crash (where the seat itself is not impacted). One exception is if car seats are designed to deform, crush, etc. to absorb energy, like a bike helmet is. But I've never seen anything like that. Also, when trying to decide whether a second-hand car seat is safe, you're multiplying the probability of a seat being damaged in an accident, by the probability that the damage will significantly reduce the safety of the seat, by the probability that the seat being sold was in an accident. I understand if a parent would rather just buy a new one and not worry about this. But I see this as being a near-zero risk. edit: I see that some child car seats do use EPP foam, which could possibly get permanently compressed during a severe impact.

codeulike 7y ago

It was suggested to us (can't remember where from) that a second hand car seat might have been dropped or damaged in some un-noticable way and so would not be as strong as it needed to be. So it wasn't so much about expiration dates as it was about knowing what had happened to that particular seat. I was kindof unconvinced by the idea of unnoticable damage* but then its your kids so you shrug and fork out for a new seat. That said, in the UK there's plenty of second hand car seats changing hands via ebay etc. * incidentally I've heard the same thing said about bicycle helmets, which use similar materials (plastic, polystyrene)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dehrmann 7y ago
> but then its your kids so you shrug and fork out for a new seat And marketers know this.
- codeulike 7y ago
  Oh yes. And I know they know this. But kids.
cellular 7y ago
I can't imagine how a dropped car seat could break. All the ones I've seen are made from very very strong plastic.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  Weaken internal structures down to a microscopic level that ultimately renders the car seat weaker to handle a major accident
  - jeffdavis 7y ago
    I guess we go straight to the factory to maintain a chain of custody?

sjg007 7y ago

Seems like the FTC should get involved for deceptive marketing...

whoopdedo 7y ago

> so long as a seat hasn’t been in a crash or otherwise doesn’t exhibit any damage That seems a sufficient reason not to accept a used seat from someone you don't know. Another reason for concern that wasn't mentioned is needing to know if the product was recalled. Upshot being there's likely no reason to throw away an older car seat. You probably still don't want to shop for one at a yard sale.

underwater 7y ago
What kind of non-obvious damage could a car seat suffer in an accident? They're fairly simple devices.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Internal structure damage reducing effectiveness in future impacts. There are shock stickers shippers use to verify if shipments have exceeded certain shock thresholds; car seats with a similar feature would allow for a second hand market (as data shows car seats should be safe to use for 20-30 years, if they haven’t been exposed to stresses from an accident). You just need enough customers to ask for it, or regulation.
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    What kind of "internal structure damage" would that be? Most car seats aren't really that complex, and when you take apart a car seat (eg to wash the cover) you can see all the "internal structure", and it would be very obvious if something was damaged in a crash.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Stress on the plastic structure, which usually isn’t exposed even with the cover off. Get a car seat from a moderate or severe accident, and cut it in half; you’ll be able to see the damage from the forces involved.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

CodeWriter23 7y ago

Having used a second hand booster seat for my daughter, I can testify sun damage is a real thing. I could not pass it on in good conscience. And we replaced it with a more modern and much sturdier version. That’s not to say I think all seats should be summarily discarded after an expiration date because some people (like me) don’t garage their car. I’m saying there is some nuance to this choice.

jakobegger 7y ago
A booster seat is just a piece of plastic that's supposed to raise your kid to the correct height for the seat belt, right? Does it really matter if the material is still sturdy in a booster seat?
- CodeWriter23 7y ago
  If it cracks into knife-like shards, I think that would matter. The updated booster however was like a car seat. The car's seat belts held the seat which in turn had a 5-point harness.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Our booster seats were just seat-shaped Polystyrene blocks with a cloth cover. Worked perfectly fine.

tssva 7y ago

The explanation I have always heard is that car seats utilize EPP and EPS both of which breakdown to some degree when exposed to UV light.

IndrekR 7y ago
EPP (extruded polypropylene) and EPS (extruded polystyrene) are not exposed to the sunlight in car seat's construction. Also, if those break down it will be surface-first decomposition and very visible/noticeable.
- tssva 7y ago
  In the car seats I had the EPP and EPS were in positions that they could be exposed to sunlight.
exhilaration 7y ago
I've always heard that car windows filter out UV light.
- tssva 7y ago
  Windshields usually filter UV light, but the other car windows usually don't. In addition a large number of infant car seats consist of a base unit which always remains fastened in the car and a removeable unit which holds the infant. The removeable unit often can also fit into a stroller unit. When used in the stroller the EPP and EPS have a even greater chance of being exposed to UV light.

aurizon 7y ago

An almost perfect racket, the product has a low intrinsic cost and a long life - how can we make them obsolete? Kid based FUD is sown all over their web pages and package inserts, and we all love kids - right?

TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm currently buying a new seat for our kid (as she's outgrowing the second-hand one we had before). Even with ISOFIX and i-Size standards in the EU, it's an ordeal. The space is ridiculously overcrowded (just how many variants of a car seat can one make?!), seats themselves are near-impossible to compare against each other, and every site keeps reminding you that your kid's life hangs on your purchase. And then there's car compatibility issue - we just discovered that even though our Xsara Picasso has ISOFIX mount points, it doesn't accept the support leg (because of floor-level storage compartments) and seemingly doesn't have a top tether mounting point either. One has to wonder why they even bothered to add the ISOFIX mounts in the first place. At this point I'd gladly pay $100 or more for some expert to just recommend a safe seat for our car. I already wasted much more than that on research in terms of opportunity cost. (please excuse the rant)
- speedupmate 7y ago
  just take the science out of it, carseat for a kid does nothing more than to rise them to suitable seatbelt height or makes the seatbelt usable for really young kids. Isofix does not have to have a leg etc could be just bars holding the seat at place, thats its only benefit it keeps the object attached to isofix in place in case of a accident. It will not fly around the car as it is attached to it thus provides more safety. At the end if the crash is huge then newtons laws apply a bigger mass will just run everything over, does not matter if it is secured or not you just can't beat a bigger mass.
- newshorts 7y ago
  Just ask reddit... That’s how I found our car seat. I was looking for safety and fit, but also what people seemed to like the best. Forums are great for stuff like this.

sideshowb 7y ago

Yeah, so I was never really sure what a new car seat would gain us in our second hand car... And this from someone who just spent good money replacing the rock and roll bed in a campervan to improve seatbelt safety for the little one. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

silencio 7y ago

This doesn't take into account seat maintenance and daily use, it feels like. We have two car seats with 9 year expirations. The older seat is almost 3 years old. I doubt it's going to make it past 5-6. My first kid has had diaper blowouts, vomiting episodes, messy eating episodes, potty training accidents, and more - all into the same seat. It's looking pretty grungy. I'm pretty paranoid about following manufacturer instructions for cleaning, but I know plenty of parents that bleach and steam clean and generally don't follow instructions for car seat care. Gently used seats that were well taken care of - those should absolutely be reused, and you don't have to get into developing nations to find someone that can use it. But not all seats, honestly - especially not with how much we as a society are using car seats nowadays. My almost-3 year old is still rear facing in a convertible seat that should last her at least another year.

PeterStuer 7y ago
Old colleague of mine used to put the (small) seat in the dishwasher with the top shelve removed.

crb002 7y ago

Might be more safe as new models haven’t gotten recalled for defects yet.

acd 7y ago

I recently sold a car seat just to learn about the second hand age of cars seats matter. But the environment matter a lot too. There ought to be crash test by government agencies comparing new and old car seats. Similar trend with children carriages. Shifting from sturdy iron constructions towards light weight aluminum materials. Difference being iron construction lasts long good for the environment, aluminum one to two children buy and throw.

HenryBemis 7y ago
> There ought to be crash test by government agencies comparing new and old car seats Knowing how corporations rule the USA, the moment a government agency will start doing this testing/comparison, the carseat manufacturers will start lobbying (or as we know it in the rest of the world: "bribing politicians to preserve and increase their profits"), and we will most likely not see any solid results. Knowing Sweden and how they value life over $$$$, my money is with them instead of a shady "Carseat Media LLC". It looks like it's fearmongering "hey what is more important? $500 or the life of your child?"
exhilaration 7y ago
Consumer Reports does crash tests -- well simulated crash tests, they've got a rig that accelerates the seat to see how a dummy of a child moves during crash-like conditions.

dragonwriter 7y ago

Age may or may not be a problem, but several of the people I know that have sold car seats have done so specifically because they were replacing them after they were in a vehicle collision. (Which probably also involves insurance fraud, since insurers will pay for that but require—easily faked—evidence that the seat has been rendered unsaleable, e.g., photo of it with the straps cut.) Now, maybe they were all being excessively cautious in the replacement, but...

brusselssprouts 7y ago

Evenflo has a car seat that is designed to last 10 years. This seems pretty reasonable, after this point I assume you'd want access to the latest technology and safety standards, and plastics do age some over time. https://www.evenflo.com/gold/ https://www.evenflo.com/gold/

vectorEQ 7y ago

“Used car seats shouldn’t be sold or given away, since they expire every six years and regulations change constantly.” tell me, how many of you are riding with expired seats? u criminals!

detritus 7y ago
Apparently, as the moment, about 99% of people in Italy with car seats are, due to some recently-introduced legislation. The legislation requires some electronic alarm to prevent infants being locked in cars, but apparently vendors aren't up to speed and the law was brought in anyway,leaving everyone either breaking the law or not able to drive their children... .

leecarraher 7y ago

They seem to not sell used baby gates at second hand baby stores either. id guess for a similar reason and that being that they don't want to claim liability in asserting the item was in original working order.

Amygaz 7y ago

Just the fact that you don’t know its history, especially if that car seat has been in a crash before, should be enough of a reason.

Digory 7y ago

This is about minimizing litigation risk, from the manufacturer side and the parent side. The manufacturers want to limit their exposure to any one design. If this year's cost-saving design unexpectedly doesn't work, they want to budget and cut off liability. And, as a parent, if the seat is poorly designed in a way that it ever harms my child, I want to be able to sue the manufacturer.