9 ms·

"We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017." This doesn't suprise me, and it's consistant with the feel

• kazinator 6y ago
  > We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017 That cannot be properly evaluated without considering second and additional order effects, like everyone driving huge SUVs to fit these child seats. All else is never equal. > western society has a problem of "safety at any cost" No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed. For instance, it's common for Europeans not to wear bicycle helmets.
  • tshaddox 6y ago
    It’s extremely common for Americans to not wear bicycle helmets.
    • pletnes 6y ago
      Since they don’t bicycle, you mean?
      • kortilla 6y ago
        No, the ones that do bicycle frequently don’t wear helmets. The percentage varies widely based on city.
        • deathgrips 6y ago
          Yes, they just need to magically shrink the distances between cities
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • hobofan 6y ago
      I'm not sure if there is a big cultural divided regarding wearing helmets for safety reasons. Anecdotally it's most strongly driven by "competition" with cars: - Small city -> Not that much traffic -> No helments - Big city with lacking bike infrastructure/no strong biking culture -> A lot of close encounters with cars -> Helmets - Big city with established biking culture -> No helmets
      • IncRnd 6y ago
        I think you have an inherent bias in your examples. There are bike riders outside of cities.
        • hobofan 6y ago
          If you mean rural travel between small cities/towns, that's what I head in mind too with the first example (as that's the setting I grew up in). If you mean sport biking (race, mountainbike, long distance), then you are right that I didn't consider those.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • Oricle 6y ago
      So what! Fucking good goyhim you idiots are
  • cs02rm0 6y ago
    No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed. For instance, it's common for Europeans not to wear bicycle helmets. That doesn't hold for the UK. Maybe it's spreading.
    • Thlom 6y ago
      It's common to ride without a helmet in countries where cycling is a normal activity. Basically Netherlands, Denmark, parts of Belgium, Germany and France. Where cycling is mostly a leisure activity on the weekends and for enthusiasts, helmet usage is much higher.
      • toyg 6y ago
        I never considered the possibility of wearing a helmet on a bike in non-competitive settings in Italy. Only after I moved to the UK (and had children), did I start using it regularly. To this day I’m not sure whether it’s compulsory or not, but most people have it, so...
        • pja 6y ago
          It's not compulsory in the UK to wear cycle helmets. There has been the occasional attempt to pass such a law in the past, but none were successful. Cyclist organisations are very averse to helmet laws, seeing them as marking cycling out as some unusually dangerous activity, which in turn has an inevitable negative effect on cyclist numbers.
  • cycomanic 6y ago
    > > We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017 > That cannot be properly evaluated without considering second and additional order effects, like everyone driving huge SUVs to fit these child seats. All else is never equal. > > western society has a problem of "safety at any cost" > No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed. I would say that is a gross oversimplification. It depends a lot on country, on safety "area" etc.. For instance most European countries have much stricter laws around car safety (e.g. in Germany you have to get an extensive safety check every couple of years) and driver licences. Regarding bicycle helmets I think this is much more a function of when the cycling culture developed in the country, e.g. in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark biking has been a common way of commuting for a long time (way before helmets came about) and helmets are not that common, while in Sweden for instance most cyclists were helmets.
  • PaulAJ 6y ago
    Actually we just focus our efforts on making sure everyone has potable water.
  • jaclaz 6y ago
    >No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed. Well, US are crazy about reponsabilities (the "objects seen in this mirror ...") more than safety. The EU (generally speaking) tends to be more attentive to some more practical aspects of safety, as an other commenter noted periodical revisions/check of cars, or fire regulations tend to be much stricter than the US. But - cannot say in other EU countries - here (Italy) we have our own forms of craziness. Back to the children seats, we have now a new norm mandating an alarm (also via Bluetooth and/or SMS) on seats to prevent parents forgetting toddlers strapped to the seat and walking away after having parked the car. Italian, not too bad on Google translate: https://www.automobile.it/magazine/burocrazia/seggiolino-anti-abbandono-6905 https://www.automobile.it/magazine/burocrazia/seggiolino-ant... There were countrywide a very small number of child deaths for this reason (8 or 9 documented cases in the last 20 year or so), and while this is extremely sad it doesn't seem to me like it jutifies the provision.
• tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  On the other hand America has a poor record with car crash fatalities compared to other similarly developed countries. It could do with ratcheting things up a bit further.
  • soperj 6y ago
    No, you just need to drive less.
    • saagarjha 6y ago
      Drive less, train more, stop buying huge SUVs, improve traffic laws…there’s a lot we could be doing.
    • reallydontask 6y ago
      why not both?
    • Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
      The higher numbers of traffic fatalities in the US aren't simply because Americans drive further- American roads are more dangerous per billion vehicle km than roads in other developed countries.
      • mensetmanusman 6y ago
        I wonder what would happen if you normalized by SAT/ACT score (or something that stands in for education level). Places like Germany can afford to prevent anyone from getting a vehicle that isn’t capable because of public transportation. If you prevent a rural American from driving, that is a wholly different situation.
• smarnach 6y ago
  Even if we assume the numbers in the paper are correct, saving 57 children in a single year is a lot. I have a hard time weighing this against the minor inconvenience caused by the laws to require car seats.
  • freetime2 6y ago
    I found it to be a pretty major inconvenience. Air travel in particular was quite inconvenient - having to either bring along car seats or otherwise arrange for them to be available on both sides of the flight.
    • lcrz 6y ago
      So a pretty minor inconvenience, got it.
    • drawfloat 6y ago
      That's clearly a minor inconvenience.
      • freetime2 6y ago
        Out of curiosity, have you had the experience?
    • el_benhameen 6y ago
      If car seats existed but weren’t required, would you have chosen not to bring them? Or, phrased differently, was it just the legal requirement that caused you to bring them?
      • himlion 6y ago
        When I don't plan to do more than 50 miles of driving on one side, I would definitely not bring them if there wasn't a legal requirement.
        • 6y ago
• toyg 6y ago
  You seem to assume reducing fertility is a bad thing, hence the tradeoff with a small increase in safety is not worth it. I personally disagree. Reducing fertility rates across the world, without impacting personal freedoms, should be considered paramount.
  • Taek 6y ago
    I'm assuming you hold these views for environmental reasons? I don't think the quantity of human beings is a significant factor in the deterioration of our environment. We have plenty of stainable ways to provide for ten billion plus humans. Most of the damage comes from unsustainable production. The amount of production happening per capita is increasing worldwide, and if we want to save the environment we have to enforce that production is sustainable.
    • redisman 6y ago
      The number of humans is almost certainly one of the main multipliers. If you halve the number of people I'm pretty sure you'd close to halve emissions and pollution and habitat loss. I think "less people" is easier to achieve than some global political consensus and the fall of capitalism. And no I don't think "sustainable" and capitalism anywhere near it's current form fit in the same world. Protecting nature is not a market force so you need some other mechanism for that.
      • Taek 6y ago
        A quick google search suggests we need to cut emissions by 80%. For population control to be a meaningful play, we're talking about cutting the entire world down under 2 billion people. And this is assuming people on average are responsible for equal amounts of emissions. But the rich are overwhelmingly bigger contributors on a per capita basis, and as automation continues it gets easier and easier for a small number of people to be responsible for a large amount of consumption.
        • imtringued 6y ago
• wastra 6y ago
  Temporary or permanent disability is also important. As I won't pay Elsevier to read this article, I can't evaluate the (likely) methodolgical failings. Even major journals sometimes let papers with significant methodological flaws through, (e.g. the disastrous mistake of publishing the vaccine-autism fraud, which has cost many lives). I do retrospective research of a different kind, and struggle with making causal inference from non-experimental data. This is an inescapable philosophical and scientific problem, and the very fact they talk about a "causal channel" (novel verbiage to me, btw) raises an eyebrow. As a starting point, the publisher, SSRN, recently sold out to the Elsevier monster. SSRN, according to first line of its FAQ, "is a platform for the dissemination of early-stage research." Why is this research "early stage?" I suggest it simply failed to meet submission standards for more reputable journals. This is hardly breaking news, likely just low quality work. If I cared more, I would also, in addition to reviewing the actual article, check the credentials of the authors for bias due to religious, business, funding or political affiliations. The authors force us to consider the competing implicit demands that people may procreate without external constraint, and that all children's welfare is to a degree the responsibility of society. On the first, what law doesn't (somehow, via a "causal channel!") affect people's ability to procreate?
  • michaelt 6y ago
    > As I won't pay Elsevier to read this article, I can't evaluate the (likely) methodolgical failings. So you haven't read the article but you think it's wrong, huh? Well, good news: just clear your cookies and 'Open PDF in browser' gives you the paper, no sign up or payment needed.
    • wastra 6y ago
      My points all apply, even if I thought it did not warrant pursuing to the full text. I did not state the article was wrong, although I think it is quite likely to be worthless, and therefore not worth my time.
• lcrz 6y ago
  "Only 57 children survived an accident that would otherwise have died (in one year), clearly we should scrap laws that demand carseats for children" This idea that something that is (at most) a mild inconvenience (make sure the children in your car are well-protected) equates to "safety at any cost" is plainly ridiculous. The same reasoning is at the foundation for why the US now has +200000 people dead from the COVID-19 virus. "In the United States, 675 children 12 years old and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, 4 and nearly 116,000 were injured in 2017. Of the children 12 years old and younger who died in a crash in 2017 (for which restraint use was known), 35% were not buckled up." https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/child_passenger_safety/cps-factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/child_passenger_safet... So about 440 children died while buckled up. Suddenly 57 doesn't seem like such a bad number.
  • kalleboo 6y ago
    > This idea that something that is (at most) a mild inconvenience The argument in the paper is that it's not just a mild inconvenience, but rather a complete showstopper for many couples, that they can't afford a larger car so they simply stop having children. The argument also isn't between car seats and letting your baby crawl around the floor, it's about the upper age limit for kids that also have some degree of protection from regular seatbelts. AAP recommendations are that kids should be in a five-point restraint car seat until age 8. Nobody does this. Should it be legislated?
    • bbarn 6y ago
      Wouldn't a five point harness be safer for everyone, adults included?
      • curlypaul924 6y ago
        Not necessarily. I use a five point harness when I'm racing. With a helmet and a foam neck brace, I have walked away from getting T-boned in the driver door. But that extra equipment impedes visibility that I might need e.g. when parking. I've driven a fully caged car from coast to coast (US), but from what I understand I took a risk. The harness and cage and restraint are all designed to with together. The human body stretches in a collision, so there is risk of head injury compared to a street car. I trust the equipment in the race car with my life, but there is a reason I don't drive one to work every day.
• redgc 6y ago
  Presumably if ~57 would have been fatal then there's also a lot of serious non-fatal injuries too
  • contravariant 6y ago
    Not necessarily, if the distribution has a sufficiently long tail then there might not be all that many cases between 'minor injuries' and 'fatal'.
• Arnt 6y ago
  Western societies don't aim for safety at any cost. The states place a cost on each life, and you'll feel that the numbers are too high, but they're numbers, backed by rationales and research. I looked up the number for one country now, and the report that contains the number also contains references to four decades of academic literature.
  • himlion 6y ago
    I recently read that the number is €2.6 million euro for the Netherlands.
  • dash2 6y ago
    You might be optimistic to think that car safety regulation is designed so as to maximise consumer welfare. See eg https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.24.3.233 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.24.3.233
  • onemiketwelve 6y ago
    Exactly, any regulatory decision large or small usually has a ton of research and thought behind it. An interesting episode of planetmoney goes over the history of how to quantify harm/ a human life vs the cost of protective measures. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-vs-the-economy https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-v... Apparently the value sits at $10 million USD/ life now. If you take 57 babby * 10M / $200 / car seat = 2.8M car seats. There's apparently 3.7M babbies born in the US/ year. So I think if you accept these numbers it does still make sense.
• mola 6y ago
  "a problem" What makes it a problem? It's a choice. We value existing quality of life more than quantity of life. Who says that's a problem? Who said less new people is a problem?
  • _-___________-_ 6y ago
    Many countries are currently struggling, or will soon struggle, with the impact of an aging population. Less new people can be a serious problem. Quite apart from that, just conceptually, "safety at any cost" is obviously a major problem. If the cost is higher than the benefit we shouldn't do it.
  • gridlockd 6y ago
    It is a problem because that "quality of life" depends on demographics. If there's a huge amount of old people relative to the amount of young people, pension systems turn into a Ponzi scheme. People that are paying into the system now will not be getting their money back, unless the next generation pays even more. Rinse and repeat. And before you say "we'll just take it from the rich", please do the math on how much money the rich have, versus the cost of pensions. It's sobering.
    • yohannparis 6y ago
      Immigrations is a viable and already available response to this problem. Unfortunately most western countries are not willing to embrace it.
• learnstats2 6y ago
  That's... a lot of deaths, and a lot of grieving families. If the same number of deaths happened at an annual event, it would be major news headlines.
  • donatj 6y ago
    At the same time, it leads you to wonder how many deaths were caused as as direct and indirect result of the seats and their associated costs. I would guess it’s non-zero when talking in the scale of hundreds of millions of children.
    • learnstats2 6y ago
      If you guess it's non-zero, can you identify one such case?
  • greenshackle2 6y ago
    Every death is a tragedy, but public policy is a balancing act, you can't spend infinite resources and goodwill (directly or by imposing costs on others) on saving every life, because you'll have nothing left for the next 10,000 lives you need to save. Don't confuse newsworthiness with importance. The news cares more about novelty than consequences. Something like 700 children drown every year and that fails to make headlines, because it's not surprising.
• kkielhofner 6y ago
  57 deaths isn't a lot (in statistical terms) but this figure reminds me of the missing bullet holes: https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg-664e708cfc3d https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-... How many injuries (some likely to be very serious) are prevented or otherwise mitigated by car seats? I also seem to recall some old story about the introduction of helmets to combat and the "surprising" result of injury increasing (but can't find it now). As in of course injuries increase when the previous result would have been death.
  • jwalton 6y ago
    Freakonomics did a good Ted Talk about why we probably don't need car seats for kids who are 7: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_about_child_carseats https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo... And, did a follow up on exactly what you're talking about, although points out that their results differ from some other analysis: https://freakonomics.com/2005/07/09/more-evidence-on-car-seats-vs-seat-belts/ https://freakonomics.com/2005/07/09/more-evidence-on-car-sea...
  • davidsolomon 6y ago
    This is definitely possible - we've only looked at deaths. One point to note about the 57 deaths number. There's also an argument to be made that you should apply the same burden of proof to claims that car seats reduce fertility, and that car seats reduce car crash fatalities. In other words, some people are skeptical of our methodology, which is totally fair. But if you subject the hypothesis that child car seats reduce car crash deaths to the same level of skeptical prior, the evidence in favor of saving lives is much, much weaker than the evidence on fertility, in our opinion. The 57 deaths is our best point estimate from the regressions, but in the vast majority of specifications you can't rule out an effect of zero. By contrast, we find pretty strong evidence on the fertility reduction, that we think is fairly tightly identified compared with other competing explanations.
• k2enemy 6y ago
  I would guess that there is also an effect where the frustration of having to strap a child into a car seat means that you end up taking less car trips with kids along. This would further reduce the number of accidents involving children compared to a no car seat world.
• tyxodiwktis 6y ago
  Another example related to children - in 1993 guidance changed from having children sleep on their front to having them sleep on their backs. The result was a reduction in SIDS deaths from 0.13% to 0.035%. However the rate of kids having a flat spot on the back of their heads increased to 47% of 2 month olds. That flat spot pushes the rest of their skull forward and can result in a prominent forehead and misshapen features (iow, makes your kid ugly). Is the trade off between a 0.1% reduction in death rate worth a 50% chance of being ugly?
  • lucasmullens 6y ago
    Are you really under the impression half of everyone is ugly because they slept on their backs?
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > 0.1% reduction in death rate 73% reduction in death rate, but also 0.95 percentage point reduction. > 50% chance of being ugly? No, a less than 50% chance of a condition that can (but does not always) produce ugliness.
  • LasEspuelas 6y ago
    If you ever tried to console a parent who lost a child while he was sleeping, you would want to reduce the death rate as much as possible, no matter how many extra uglies we get.
  • spenczar5 6y ago
    Do you have a cite for that 47% figure?