12 ms·

Car Seats as Contraception (2020)

99 points by zajio1am 4y ago

xpe 4y ago
A good read. Thoughtful and generally well-reasoned. Also, there is some interesting methodology in the paper. (A nice refreshing break from the mind-numbing oversimplifications I see too much of.)
bediger4000 4y ago
I think we'll all nod knowingly when billionaires who want cheap labor start railing against child car seats.
1-6 4y ago
First principles thinking. For those who’ve raised kids, car seats and the number of seats in your car can very well be a reason to limit family size.
- chubs 4y ago
  Definitely, any more than 3 kids and you need to buy a van (or 4WD aka SUV for americans). Or so we thought... turns out that once they grow bigger, you need a 3-rows car anyway because if you jam 3 kids next to each other they fight like rabid cats.
  - freetime2 4y ago
    Even with just two kids we'll often ride with one parent in the back and one kid up front, which we have found to greatly reduce fighting.
  - parineum 4y ago
    My brother, sister and I rode in the back seat over a two week (one way) road trip halfway across the country. It's surprising what you don't "need" when you can't have it.
  - spockz 4y ago
    At least in Europe the car seats are so wide and the benches so narrow that you can forget having 3 children in the back row. Also isofix is usually missing in the center “seat” which is typically smaller or even raised. The only case that I have seen work is with two rear facing seats on the outer seats and a small/narrow front facing seat in the middle. I wish manufacturers hadn’t killed off MPVs. Now we are stuck with older models with less to no hybrid/electric drivetrains at higher than new cost. Or getting a huge (for Europe standards) car or an gas guzzling van. Edit: turns out that, in the Netherlands, a car seat in the center seat isn’t required if it doesn’t fit in your car. Only a raised seat is allowed if the kids are smaller than 135cm. But what about safety? Then the middle one won’t have a car seat.
doodlebugging 4y ago
I may get my wish if this leads to automakers bringing back front bench seats in most of their product lines and doing away with those stupid bucket seats that deprive car owners of the opportunity to sit next to their sweethearts and open up a third child car seat position up front. That would be a welcome change as far as I am concerned. Front bench seats!
- prpl 4y ago
  you could get a truck, but it’s not an old school bench (like my ‘79 Le Mans I drove in high school). The 7-seater Tiguan which is just big enough to squeeze the parents in when they visit and compact enough for 5 in the city otherwise. Not quite big enough for a road trip for 6 though. I personally would rather get a 6 seater truck than a bigger SUV for the most part, but I don’t have to haul around 6 or 7 on a regular basis.
  - doodlebugging 4y ago
    My family was 7 people growing up, my parents and 5 of us kids. A four door car with bench seats gave everyone a place to sit. A station wagon was better since we could spread out.
xpe 4y ago
From the abstract: > Women with two children younger than their state’s age mandate have a lower annual birth probability of 0.73 percentage points. 0.73% less than what? On page 2: > We find that a woman’s annual probability of giving birth declines by 0.73 percentage points when a she has two children below the car seat age, a 7.8% relative drop for women with two children.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  0.73 percentage point reduction in the probability of being pregnant -- which makes them 7.8% less likely to be pregnant in any given year than a woman with two children generally. As in, for women in the cohort they're using, in any given year 10.65% of them will become pregnant. But if you consider only women with two car-seat-age kids, this falls by 0.73 points to 9.92%.
drfuchs 4y ago
Cf. Chuck Berry’s “Riding Along In My Automobile.”
- pgodzin 4y ago
  Too late -- his baby is already beside him at the wheel
Aloha 4y ago
There is and has been a creeping level of do-gooderism/we-know-best in the US regulatory environment, namely that no one ever stop to ask if the cost to benefit ratio is reasonable. There are a bunch of regulatory inspired costs - backup cameras, mandatory stability control, airbags and ABS, each of these come with costs - the disproportionate burden of which, falls on the poor. While I'm not suggesting that we go back to every car being a rolling death trap cum molotov cocktail, I'm suggesting more forbearance and a thought to cost/return analysis is probably warranted. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but not every preventable death or injury is worth the economic costs (opportunity, regulatory, whatever) that we spend to prevent them.
- sneak 4y ago
  We're at the point now that in the EU cars are now required to carry cellular radio transcievers (each with a unique identifier in the form of an IMEI) from the factory. It has gone a long way from mandating seatbelts.
- xpe 4y ago
  > There is and has been a creeping level of do-gooderism/we-know-best in the US regulatory environment It feels this way, though I haven't studied it. > While I'm not suggesting that we go back to every car being a rolling death trap cum molotov cocktail, I'm suggesting more forbearance and a thought to cost/return analysis is probably warranted. I somewhat agree, but this raises the next question: what is the value of a human life? It is one thing for a healthcare system or insurance group to try to maximize something (quality of life? remaining life expectancy?) for a particular budget. It is another to tradeoff saving lives against lowering vehicle costs.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    The US is a car based society, there is trillions of dollars of concrete and steel in the ground making it so, we can change if we want that but it'll take decades and trillions more to replace/overlay the infrastructure we already have. Pricing people out of vehicles prices them out of access to affordable housing, decent paying jobs and a whole bunch of other things that are important to not living in poverty, by putting vehicles and access to reliable transportation out of reach for the poor, we're effective condemning them to whatever their status quo is.
freetime2 4y ago
And according to a study by Steven Levitt back in 2005, the evidence suggests that seat belts are just about as effective as car seats as preventing deaths in children over the age of two: https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/levitt_carseats_farsdata.pdf https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/levitt_carsea...
- jjeaff 4y ago
  I have repeated this often in the last few years, but it applies here as well. While death may be the worst possible outcome here, there are certainly many more potential negative outcomes that don't show up in the data quite as easily.
  - freetime2 4y ago
    If car seats significantly decreased the likelihood of serious injury, I would expect that to result in a reduced likelihood of death. E.g. if car seats reduced the chances of head trauma, that would almost certainly translate into a reduced number of deaths as well. Conversely, I think the fact that we don't see a reduction in the number of deaths is pretty good evidence that car seats also don't significantly reduce the likelihood of serious injury. Perhaps there are certain types of injuries that car seats are more effective than seat belts at preventing - but I would like to see some strong evidence first to justify making car seats mandatory.
xpe 4y ago
The stated history is interesting. > While initial laws typically applied to children ages one to three, since the mid-1990s mandated age limits have seen a huge ratcheting upwards. The median age at which children are allowed to ride in just a seat belt in U.S. states is now eight, and every single law change has increased the age, not reduced it (with the average state making 3.2 such age changes). Enthusiasm for these laws has not been curbed by studies showing that child car seats are no more effective than seat belts in preventing death or serious injury for children above age two (e.g. Levitt 2008, Doyle and Levitt 2010). This may be due to the perception that such mandates are virtually costless, beyond that of the car seats themselves. My take? Yes on the above. Also, (a) parents are very risk averse w.r.t. their kids and (b) few lawmakers would vote against even marginal or non-existent safety benefits regarding children -- as long as the mandate makes intuitive sense to most voters.
- slavik81 4y ago
  Car seats are now designed for children up to 120 lbs. I was blown away when I saw that rating. An adult woman may very well be less than that. I'm an adult male of average height and I only exceed that limit by twenty pounds!
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    That might have more to do with the rather high rate of obesity in children in America
spoonjim 4y ago
I can see it. I bought a $90K SUV when we went to three kids. I know I didn’t need to spend that much but I did, and it felt like a cost of the kid.
- slyall 4y ago
  I've seen several people say this. Given that SUVs kill more pedestrians and cyclists I wonder if makes the policy even worse than the article states.
lxgr 4y ago
Nonidentity problems are quite something, philosophically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonidentity_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonidentity_problem
- sneak 4y ago
  This is such an excellent rabbithole, thank you!
- xpe 4y ago
  I tend to enjoy a lot of philosophy; however, reading [1] is having a soporific effect. Might anyone recommend something more detailed than the Wikipedia article but less inscrutable than [1] (more scrutable?) [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonidentity-problem/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonidentity-problem/
- Cockbrand 4y ago
  For our German readers, their Wikipedia article is much more extensive: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicht-Identit%C3%A4tsproblem https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicht-Identit%C3%A4tsproblem That said, thank you, I wasn't aware of the concept before!
drewcoo 4y ago
My father claimed that's why I needed bucket seats. So far . . . not a breeder. Here's some Cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9mZLnQ7Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9mZLnQ7Yc
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
This is wild. As America’s GDP falls from population and immigration decline, I think things like this and especially Roe v Wade overturn, which I believe will have the complete opposite effect that the GOP desires, will become more important. If you want ever increasing growth you have to have ever increasing population. The alternative is aging debt-ridden Japan.
kova12 4y ago
I don't want to sound melodramatic, but when humanity on average produces less than 2 children per woman, it is heading for extinction. I keep hearing all sorts of counter-arguments, such as: * there is too many people * people are destroying earth * fewer people are born, but more people live longer, so we are fine If you are of a thinking kind, you can see none of these points addresses the problem. I could understand if those were idiots were making these arguments, but many people who do are quite intelligent; yet they keep being in denial that humanity is heading to existential crisis. What's even more disappointing is that the same people who say this have been hugely vocal during recent pandemic. Which means, they do care for individual human life, but apparently not for the human race. Bottom line is: we desperately need more children born, and at the same time we are doing everything to discourage potential parents from producing any. Car seats are just a tip of an iceberg. Schools, police, social services, nosy neighbors, political activists are all actively making life of parents living hell. This must stop. Society must help parents. Couple thousand bucks a year in tax deductions is not help, it's a pittance. Do you know how much daycare costs? Add on top of it sleepless nights; add occasional child sickness meaning you can't go work and have a career, god forbid some mental illness or other disability. Parents are literally sacrificing their lives for future generations, as the rest of you a$$holes travel, drink, go clubs, go concerts, have sex, and not only care less about what happens to humanity tomorrow, but work on actively discouraging people from giving life to someone else. This is a f#ing disgrace. Sorry for rant.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  We do not need to increase the birth rate. Doing so would lead to a faster exhaustion of resources. We are already 8 billion and counting.
  - zionic 4y ago
    The birth rate is sub replacement in all developed countries. That’s a huge deal.
    - basch 4y ago
asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
"We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year." This is an interesting sentence. The authors say this like it's a bad thing. And I recognize there are economic risks to decreasing the birth rate. But I would not murder 57 children to cause 8,000 to be born. So I think it might be okay for these births to be avoided to save these lives? I mean it definitely should be considered in the tradeoffs but facially this seems like a reasonable trade to me.
- atomicnumber3 4y ago
  Weird how many real life scenarios end up as variations of the trolley problem
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
    You know what got me thinking about it from that perspective was that absurd trolley problem website that was making the rounds a few weeks back. https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/ https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/ in case you're one of the five living humans who hasn't seen it.
    - mcphage 4y ago
      I missed that one and I like trolley problems—so thank you :-)
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  In the US, every 8000 births leads to a lot more than 57 infant deaths. So how far would you go with that trade?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
    Are you referring to the infant death rate? According to Google it's only 5.4/1000, so it would only be 43.2/8000, not 57. But those deaths are contingent on the births happening in the first place, so the comparison is not apt. (That is, you as an infant being born pay the risk of infant death in order for the opportunity to be born -- the shot at existence. On the other hand, asking carseated children to stochastically pay with their lives for the opportunity of a sibling to exist is a different matter morally.)
vilkkala 4y ago
The number of lives saved by car seats sounded very low, but the paper compares reduced childbirths to the saved lives because of the law (mandating the use of car seats), not to the saved lives because of car seats themselves. https://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/sites/default/files/child_safety_seats_childhood_injury_cost_prevention.pdf https://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/sites/default/files/c...
fsckboy 4y ago
Modern car seat layout is anti-contraceptive! I'd be happy with that-which-could-be-performed if only that modern huge console wasn't a barrier between the two front seats, and all with no risk of pregnancy; but if we have to go to the trouble to climb into the back seat babymaker, well, all bets are off.
frnkng 4y ago
There is a British company called multimac that provides an 3 or 4 child multi seat. It is pretty much a bench you can install in your car and it fits in nearly all small cars as well. This way one does not need a bigger car when having three kids.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Nifty accidental benefit of a harmless public safety policy!
Diapason 4y ago
Only 57 fatalities, but how many injuries? Including severe and debilitating injuries, which can have gigantic economic consequences - not only direct (healthcare + disability care), but also indirect (one of the 2 parents needing to quit the workforce to take care of a disabled child for instance).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
Discussed at the time: Car seats as contraception - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24647487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24647487 - Oct 2020 (329 comments)
aakresearch 4y ago
So it is the same effect as with mandatory bicycle helmets, where the main contribution to decreased trauma rates seems to come from many people refusing to ride the bicycle at all, missing on all the goodness it brings. I even wonder if most mandates' (helmets, face masks, seatbelts, all kinds of licensing, etc.) effect is confounded primarily by them serving as "red tape". I'm guessing no one is really interested in finding this out.
yread 4y ago
Children are also a good contraception by themselves. Two+ kids is just a lot of work no matter what car you drive
analog31 4y ago
Has anybody replicated this study? I admit my first gut reaction to the abstract was: There's no way in hell anybody could have pulled that kind of signal out of the noise, in the midst of systematic effects, and produced a believable result.
jbaczuk 4y ago
I disagree, you can fit 3 carseats in the back of a car (it isn't pretty, but it works, and is legal).
cameldrv 4y ago
You can put three kids in the back seat of almost any car. We do this in both of our cars. You just need to get narrow car seats. Two good ones are the Diono Radian and the Cosco Scenera.
carlmr 4y ago
The title made my mind jump immediately to heated seating. I was pleasantly surprised it was something more hidden than that.

99 points by zajio1am 4y ago

xpe 4y ago

A good read. Thoughtful and generally well-reasoned. Also, there is some interesting methodology in the paper. (A nice refreshing break from the mind-numbing oversimplifications I see too much of.)

bediger4000 4y ago

I think we'll all nod knowingly when billionaires who want cheap labor start railing against child car seats.

1-6 4y ago

First principles thinking. For those who’ve raised kids, car seats and the number of seats in your car can very well be a reason to limit family size.

chubs 4y ago
Definitely, any more than 3 kids and you need to buy a van (or 4WD aka SUV for americans). Or so we thought... turns out that once they grow bigger, you need a 3-rows car anyway because if you jam 3 kids next to each other they fight like rabid cats.
- freetime2 4y ago
  Even with just two kids we'll often ride with one parent in the back and one kid up front, which we have found to greatly reduce fighting.
- parineum 4y ago
  My brother, sister and I rode in the back seat over a two week (one way) road trip halfway across the country. It's surprising what you don't "need" when you can't have it.
- spockz 4y ago
  At least in Europe the car seats are so wide and the benches so narrow that you can forget having 3 children in the back row. Also isofix is usually missing in the center “seat” which is typically smaller or even raised. The only case that I have seen work is with two rear facing seats on the outer seats and a small/narrow front facing seat in the middle. I wish manufacturers hadn’t killed off MPVs. Now we are stuck with older models with less to no hybrid/electric drivetrains at higher than new cost. Or getting a huge (for Europe standards) car or an gas guzzling van. Edit: turns out that, in the Netherlands, a car seat in the center seat isn’t required if it doesn’t fit in your car. Only a raised seat is allowed if the kids are smaller than 135cm. But what about safety? Then the middle one won’t have a car seat.

doodlebugging 4y ago

I may get my wish if this leads to automakers bringing back front bench seats in most of their product lines and doing away with those stupid bucket seats that deprive car owners of the opportunity to sit next to their sweethearts and open up a third child car seat position up front. That would be a welcome change as far as I am concerned. Front bench seats!

prpl 4y ago
you could get a truck, but it’s not an old school bench (like my ‘79 Le Mans I drove in high school). The 7-seater Tiguan which is just big enough to squeeze the parents in when they visit and compact enough for 5 in the city otherwise. Not quite big enough for a road trip for 6 though. I personally would rather get a 6 seater truck than a bigger SUV for the most part, but I don’t have to haul around 6 or 7 on a regular basis.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  My family was 7 people growing up, my parents and 5 of us kids. A four door car with bench seats gave everyone a place to sit. A station wagon was better since we could spread out.

xpe 4y ago

From the abstract: > Women with two children younger than their state’s age mandate have a lower annual birth probability of 0.73 percentage points. 0.73% less than what? On page 2: > We find that a woman’s annual probability of giving birth declines by 0.73 percentage points when a she has two children below the car seat age, a 7.8% relative drop for women with two children.

codefreeordie 4y ago
0.73 percentage point reduction in the probability of being pregnant -- which makes them 7.8% less likely to be pregnant in any given year than a woman with two children generally. As in, for women in the cohort they're using, in any given year 10.65% of them will become pregnant. But if you consider only women with two car-seat-age kids, this falls by 0.73 points to 9.92%.

drfuchs 4y ago

Cf. Chuck Berry’s “Riding Along In My Automobile.”

pgodzin 4y ago
Too late -- his baby is already beside him at the wheel

Aloha 4y ago

There is and has been a creeping level of do-gooderism/we-know-best in the US regulatory environment, namely that no one ever stop to ask if the cost to benefit ratio is reasonable. There are a bunch of regulatory inspired costs - backup cameras, mandatory stability control, airbags and ABS, each of these come with costs - the disproportionate burden of which, falls on the poor. While I'm not suggesting that we go back to every car being a rolling death trap cum molotov cocktail, I'm suggesting more forbearance and a thought to cost/return analysis is probably warranted. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but not every preventable death or injury is worth the economic costs (opportunity, regulatory, whatever) that we spend to prevent them.

sneak 4y ago
We're at the point now that in the EU cars are now required to carry cellular radio transcievers (each with a unique identifier in the form of an IMEI) from the factory. It has gone a long way from mandating seatbelts.
xpe 4y ago
> There is and has been a creeping level of do-gooderism/we-know-best in the US regulatory environment It feels this way, though I haven't studied it. > While I'm not suggesting that we go back to every car being a rolling death trap cum molotov cocktail, I'm suggesting more forbearance and a thought to cost/return analysis is probably warranted. I somewhat agree, but this raises the next question: what is the value of a human life? It is one thing for a healthcare system or insurance group to try to maximize something (quality of life? remaining life expectancy?) for a particular budget. It is another to tradeoff saving lives against lowering vehicle costs.
- Aloha 4y ago
  The US is a car based society, there is trillions of dollars of concrete and steel in the ground making it so, we can change if we want that but it'll take decades and trillions more to replace/overlay the infrastructure we already have. Pricing people out of vehicles prices them out of access to affordable housing, decent paying jobs and a whole bunch of other things that are important to not living in poverty, by putting vehicles and access to reliable transportation out of reach for the poor, we're effective condemning them to whatever their status quo is.

freetime2 4y ago

And according to a study by Steven Levitt back in 2005, the evidence suggests that seat belts are just about as effective as car seats as preventing deaths in children over the age of two: https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/levitt_carseats_farsdata.pdf https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/levitt_carsea...

jjeaff 4y ago
I have repeated this often in the last few years, but it applies here as well. While death may be the worst possible outcome here, there are certainly many more potential negative outcomes that don't show up in the data quite as easily.
- freetime2 4y ago
  If car seats significantly decreased the likelihood of serious injury, I would expect that to result in a reduced likelihood of death. E.g. if car seats reduced the chances of head trauma, that would almost certainly translate into a reduced number of deaths as well. Conversely, I think the fact that we don't see a reduction in the number of deaths is pretty good evidence that car seats also don't significantly reduce the likelihood of serious injury. Perhaps there are certain types of injuries that car seats are more effective than seat belts at preventing - but I would like to see some strong evidence first to justify making car seats mandatory.

xpe 4y ago

The stated history is interesting. > While initial laws typically applied to children ages one to three, since the mid-1990s mandated age limits have seen a huge ratcheting upwards. The median age at which children are allowed to ride in just a seat belt in U.S. states is now eight, and every single law change has increased the age, not reduced it (with the average state making 3.2 such age changes). Enthusiasm for these laws has not been curbed by studies showing that child car seats are no more effective than seat belts in preventing death or serious injury for children above age two (e.g. Levitt 2008, Doyle and Levitt 2010). This may be due to the perception that such mandates are virtually costless, beyond that of the car seats themselves. My take? Yes on the above. Also, (a) parents are very risk averse w.r.t. their kids and (b) few lawmakers would vote against even marginal or non-existent safety benefits regarding children -- as long as the mandate makes intuitive sense to most voters.

slavik81 4y ago
Car seats are now designed for children up to 120 lbs. I was blown away when I saw that rating. An adult woman may very well be less than that. I'm an adult male of average height and I only exceed that limit by twenty pounds!
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  That might have more to do with the rather high rate of obesity in children in America

spoonjim 4y ago

I can see it. I bought a $90K SUV when we went to three kids. I know I didn’t need to spend that much but I did, and it felt like a cost of the kid.

slyall 4y ago
I've seen several people say this. Given that SUVs kill more pedestrians and cyclists I wonder if makes the policy even worse than the article states.

lxgr 4y ago

Nonidentity problems are quite something, philosophically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonidentity_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonidentity_problem

sneak 4y ago
This is such an excellent rabbithole, thank you!
xpe 4y ago
I tend to enjoy a lot of philosophy; however, reading [1] is having a soporific effect. Might anyone recommend something more detailed than the Wikipedia article but less inscrutable than [1] (more scrutable?) [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonidentity-problem/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonidentity-problem/
Cockbrand 4y ago
For our German readers, their Wikipedia article is much more extensive: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicht-Identit%C3%A4tsproblem https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicht-Identit%C3%A4tsproblem That said, thank you, I wasn't aware of the concept before!

drewcoo 4y ago

My father claimed that's why I needed bucket seats. So far . . . not a breeder. Here's some Cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9mZLnQ7Yc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9mZLnQ7Yc

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

This is wild. As America’s GDP falls from population and immigration decline, I think things like this and especially Roe v Wade overturn, which I believe will have the complete opposite effect that the GOP desires, will become more important. If you want ever increasing growth you have to have ever increasing population. The alternative is aging debt-ridden Japan.

kova12 4y ago

I don't want to sound melodramatic, but when humanity on average produces less than 2 children per woman, it is heading for extinction. I keep hearing all sorts of counter-arguments, such as: * there is too many people * people are destroying earth * fewer people are born, but more people live longer, so we are fine If you are of a thinking kind, you can see none of these points addresses the problem. I could understand if those were idiots were making these arguments, but many people who do are quite intelligent; yet they keep being in denial that humanity is heading to existential crisis. What's even more disappointing is that the same people who say this have been hugely vocal during recent pandemic. Which means, they do care for individual human life, but apparently not for the human race. Bottom line is: we desperately need more children born, and at the same time we are doing everything to discourage potential parents from producing any. Car seats are just a tip of an iceberg. Schools, police, social services, nosy neighbors, political activists are all actively making life of parents living hell. This must stop. Society must help parents. Couple thousand bucks a year in tax deductions is not help, it's a pittance. Do you know how much daycare costs? Add on top of it sleepless nights; add occasional child sickness meaning you can't go work and have a career, god forbid some mental illness or other disability. Parents are literally sacrificing their lives for future generations, as the rest of you a$$holes travel, drink, go clubs, go concerts, have sex, and not only care less about what happens to humanity tomorrow, but work on actively discouraging people from giving life to someone else. This is a f#ing disgrace. Sorry for rant.

29athrowaway 4y ago
We do not need to increase the birth rate. Doing so would lead to a faster exhaustion of resources. We are already 8 billion and counting.
- zionic 4y ago
  The birth rate is sub replacement in all developed countries. That’s a huge deal.
  - basch 4y ago

asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago

"We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year." This is an interesting sentence. The authors say this like it's a bad thing. And I recognize there are economic risks to decreasing the birth rate. But I would not murder 57 children to cause 8,000 to be born. So I think it might be okay for these births to be avoided to save these lives? I mean it definitely should be considered in the tradeoffs but facially this seems like a reasonable trade to me.

atomicnumber3 4y ago
Weird how many real life scenarios end up as variations of the trolley problem
- asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
  You know what got me thinking about it from that perspective was that absurd trolley problem website that was making the rounds a few weeks back. https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/ https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/ in case you're one of the five living humans who hasn't seen it.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    I missed that one and I like trolley problems—so thank you :-)
Dylan16807 4y ago
In the US, every 8000 births leads to a lot more than 57 infant deaths. So how far would you go with that trade?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
  Are you referring to the infant death rate? According to Google it's only 5.4/1000, so it would only be 43.2/8000, not 57. But those deaths are contingent on the births happening in the first place, so the comparison is not apt. (That is, you as an infant being born pay the risk of infant death in order for the opportunity to be born -- the shot at existence. On the other hand, asking carseated children to stochastically pay with their lives for the opportunity of a sibling to exist is a different matter morally.)

vilkkala 4y ago

The number of lives saved by car seats sounded very low, but the paper compares reduced childbirths to the saved lives because of the law (mandating the use of car seats), not to the saved lives because of car seats themselves. https://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/sites/default/files/child_safety_seats_childhood_injury_cost_prevention.pdf https://www.childrenssafetynetwork.org/sites/default/files/c...

fsckboy 4y ago

Modern car seat layout is anti-contraceptive! I'd be happy with that-which-could-be-performed if only that modern huge console wasn't a barrier between the two front seats, and all with no risk of pregnancy; but if we have to go to the trouble to climb into the back seat babymaker, well, all bets are off.

frnkng 4y ago

There is a British company called multimac that provides an 3 or 4 child multi seat. It is pretty much a bench you can install in your car and it fits in nearly all small cars as well. This way one does not need a bigger car when having three kids.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Nifty accidental benefit of a harmless public safety policy!

Diapason 4y ago

Only 57 fatalities, but how many injuries? Including severe and debilitating injuries, which can have gigantic economic consequences - not only direct (healthcare + disability care), but also indirect (one of the 2 parents needing to quit the workforce to take care of a disabled child for instance).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

Discussed at the time: Car seats as contraception - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24647487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24647487 - Oct 2020 (329 comments)

aakresearch 4y ago

So it is the same effect as with mandatory bicycle helmets, where the main contribution to decreased trauma rates seems to come from many people refusing to ride the bicycle at all, missing on all the goodness it brings. I even wonder if most mandates' (helmets, face masks, seatbelts, all kinds of licensing, etc.) effect is confounded primarily by them serving as "red tape". I'm guessing no one is really interested in finding this out.

yread 4y ago

Children are also a good contraception by themselves. Two+ kids is just a lot of work no matter what car you drive

analog31 4y ago

Has anybody replicated this study? I admit my first gut reaction to the abstract was: There's no way in hell anybody could have pulled that kind of signal out of the noise, in the midst of systematic effects, and produced a believable result.

jbaczuk 4y ago

I disagree, you can fit 3 carseats in the back of a car (it isn't pretty, but it works, and is legal).

cameldrv 4y ago

You can put three kids in the back seat of almost any car. We do this in both of our cars. You just need to get narrow car seats. Two good ones are the Diono Radian and the Cosco Scenera.

carlmr 4y ago

The title made my mind jump immediately to heated seating. I was pleasantly surprised it was something more hidden than that.