9 ms·

On Car Seats as Contraception

42 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

reboot81 4y ago
Does the planets resources increase with every child born?
- whiddershins 4y ago
  Yes!
- umvi 4y ago
  Depends on how you define "resources". The planet's natural resources do not intrinsically increase with every child born, however, the planet's intellectual and problem-solving resources do increase with each child born (*depending on the quality of parents the child was born to).
superchroma 4y ago
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Stop making something as wonderful as children into an -ist. While you may be correct that we have too many people, calling humans who want to or do reproduce--we are not unique in our biological needs to do just that--"natalists" is just a short hop to demonization or worse. Or have you already made that hop, perhaps?
  - lolchildren 4y ago
  - aaron695 4y ago
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Well said, I’ve started (tongue-in-cheek) identifying as a natalist just on account of disagreeing strongly with the unhinged anti-natalist perspective rampant in online culture. I also want to have kids, think it’s fine if others do not share this view, but don’t think it’s fine or healthy for others to spew insults at those they disagree with.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    its a way of legitimizing their position. they're trying to turn normal people into "ists" to make it seem like it's not the default position.
- causi 4y ago
  There aren't too many people in America. How about we focus on fixing the services we have for those already here You're going to have a hard time fixing anything at all when your population pyramid is inverted. For long term stability you need to have one child per adult. The US currently produces 0.85 children per adult. Innovation dies when all the young peoples' work is going to support a massive geriatric population that only consume.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    Climate change is the #2 reason I'm not having kids; I think it's unethical to bring children into a world doomed to war & famine. (The #1 reason is that I don't like being around children.) If you want folks to have more kids, you need to address the reasons they're not having them. As the OP of this thread and myself indicate, environmental concerns are a big reason.
  - bregma 4y ago
    All Ponzi schemes eventually fail. If you're paying current dividends out of new capital, you're running a Ponzi scheme. Find another way to fix things before it's too late.
- secondbreakfast 4y ago
  I disagree that there are too many people. Have you read much about the Malthus/George debates? Malthus has now been wrong for 200 years (and counting).
  - superchroma 4y ago
    There are whales full of plastic and the rain isn't safe to drink. How can adding more humans help??
    - dylan604 4y ago
      Because the humans that are currently existing aren't helping doesn't mean that one that might come along later doesn't have that "Eureka!" moment.
    - secondbreakfast 4y ago
      Reminds me of the George Carlin bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSi9NW5u3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSi9NW5u3E Humor aside, it's a depressing worldview to me that each marginal human is a net negative. I take the opposite view, that each human is a net positive - and we need all the brainpower we can get to solve all of our problems.
      - ErikVandeWater 4y ago
        Some people are certainly not contributing much brainpower. If only the smartest people were having kids I could see this being true.
      - superchroma 4y ago
        We could solve a lot of our problems right now if people were prepared to change how they live and accept a decent amount more responsibility (e.g. sort waste by hand, etc.). Scaling up problems typically hasn't helped, and you get novel issues at large scale (e.g. parasites and diseases thrive due to monoculture in huge farms). As Bill Burr noted, we could all drive tanks to work if there weren't as many of us. It's cynical, but there's more room for largesse at small scale.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  There is so much vitriol in this statement. The declining birthrate is not as obviously a good thing as you make it out to be, and not everyone shares your cynicism on the state and fate of humanity. Comments like these don’t add much value, but sure do inject a lot of negativity into these discussions of family and society.
  - strangattractor 4y ago
    Binary thinking. The question is not whether there are downsides to a declining birthrate (there are) but whether there are even larger downsides to over population (pollution, resource depletion, destruction of other species). Musk's solution is simply find another planet to trash. You simply choose to fiddle as the Earth burns - literally.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      No, I simply choose to treat the decisions of others that I disagree with a bit more respect and candor than you do. You are too comfortable with lecturing other individuals, and I doubt you’d communicate like this with a stranger in person. Especially when the thing you’re criticizing is biologically hardwired result of two people that love one another and want to share a life together.
      - superchroma 4y ago
        You are also lecturing others. Anyway, I disagree. Now more than ever it is necessary to examine and weigh the desires of the lizard brain. The lizard brain will never find equilibrium when it has supremacy in its locality and has desires. We know this. We've seen it in nature, and we've lived it ourselves. We're too powerful and capable to be contained by our surroundings, so now we're going to have to think our way out of this or cook the planet.
      - strangattractor 4y ago
        1. You are right - I probably would not speak to someone in person like that. I apologize. 2. I have a raised a child with some one I love. We made a decision to limit the size of our family for the reasons I stated above. I do not begrudge others making a different decision. I dis-like it when they bemoan the fact that their decision has consequences they don't like.
h2odragon 4y ago
This is about child safety seats; not the big bench seats that cars used to have where one could more easily arrange the act of conception, than one can in modern cars with bucket seats, consoles, and etc. You could get farther in the back seat of a '72 Cuda than you could on a minivan bench seat.
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Yeah, I've thought before about how those track with the birth rate decline.
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Well, the child seat in the back seat is also in the way of conception of siblings, so there's both...
burlesona 4y ago
This resonates with me. It’s beyond tedious to get the kids in and out of the car seats all the time, and needing to buy a larger car to fit more than two kids gave me significant pause. We eventually decided to have more kids, and the positives far outweigh the negatives for us, but to this day the hassle of loading and unloading the car to go places is the single biggest negative experience of raising children. It adds an extra 5-10 minutes on each end of every trip compared to adults just being able to get in and out on their own.
- forty 4y ago
  I don't know how old your kids are, but mine are 3 & 5 and they can seat and buckle on their own, so that extra time doesn't last for too long at least (seats are mostly annoying when I need to transfer the seats to another car and then back to mine)
  - D13Fd 4y ago
    Agreed. I’m starting to think the people who are complaining don’t actually have multiple kids.
- mguerville 4y ago
  With one single child I barely notice, but thinking about it it does probably take 2-3 minutes so your 5-10 minutes estimates is probably spot on for multiple kids. Living in a midwestern city and relying on street parking I do dread the loading/unloading in the winter, has there been any attempt at improving this product category on the speed of use dimension?
  - adsfgdsafdasf 4y ago
    the time required is an exponential function with multiple kids
  - D13Fd 4y ago
    Mine were able to buckle themselves by at 2.5 or so. It’s not that hard. So even having 4 kids under 6, I rarely had to deal with buckling more than one at a time. Plus IMO 30 seconds is a better estimate than 2-3 minutes unless they are fighting you or somewhere hard to reach. It’s one check buck and two leg buckles. I will say that installing car seats is an absolute pain of a task.
fps 4y ago
There are plenty of narrow car seats that will fit 3 across in any car. I ran 3 Diono Radians in the back seat of a second gen Prius and there was plenty of space. Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children.
- throw003away 4y ago
  > Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children. Yes but cars and driving are so holy to people. While the effect discovered was small, it seems subjectively true to me that people spend way more time thinking about car and car shit than they ought to.
- greesil 4y ago
  It's car seats that are affecting fertility, and definitely couldn't be the cost of raising a child. /s
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Money and time are fungible on a societal level. If you throw up barriers to entry in the form of time and/or money you will get less of whatever it is you're throwing barriers in front of. Car seats are just one example of a barrier.
    - greesil 4y ago
      I'm going to guess you don't have kids.
      - btilly 4y ago
        Your snark is uncalled for. I completely agree with the comment and I have 4 teenagers. In fact having children has made me more acutely aware of the issue, not less. Because now I have more things I want to do, and face more barriers of both time and money that I have to trade off.
    - D13Fd 4y ago
antiterra 4y ago
> 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). Like many of the other Freakonomics conclusions, this one is at best oversimplified, and at worst actively dangerous. To simply quote it as uncontested fact is ridiculously incompetent. For convenience, I’ll just link to the breathless (but sourced) assessment of the earlier study by a pediatrician at 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...
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Without even jumping into the detail of the study, for most toddlers under 3 year old with an average height, a three point seatbelt would have the chest strap crossing at neck height. Irrespective of statistics, common sense would dictate that using your neck region to restrain any human at multiple G's impact, is most definitely not a good idea.
  - btilly 4y ago
    Booster seats exist to solve exactly that problem, and are much more reasonable on their width. The problem comes when you have multiple small children that need an actual fixed car seat.
    - D13Fd 4y ago
      This is a really not that much of a problem unless you have a compact sedan. I have 4 kids. You can fit 3 car seats in the back/middle row of many cars. They make narrow seats for this purpose. In my experience it’s harder to find a good narrow booster than a narrow five-point-harness car seat. The problem is that boosters don’t have their own belts and can block the seat belt path if seat spacing is tight.
- RajT88 4y ago
  > Like many of the other Freakonomics conclusions Yes! Thank you! They are about as bad as Malcolm Gladwell. And yet I know plenty of finance guys who take it as gospel.
giantg2 4y ago
While I feel we need to be gradually reducing the number of people on the planet (can anyone point me to the number of humans earth can sustainably support?), I agree with what the article is saying. It seems to me one of the biggest things is the pace of change and potential for criminal charges. Especially considering that many people are likely breaking the laws (not just car seats, but supervision, etc), with no ill effects, and the laws are only selectively enforced. Is there an actual net benefit? And all the while parents have to keep up with increasing and changing laws, which I doubt many do. There's a risk of civil or criminal penalties related to children, and increasing costs (including mental) associated with compliance. I have a truck. You cannot have more than one rear facing seat in the back if you have two adults in the front. When I was a kid (not too long ago) I was riding without a booster seat well before age 8 and we'd occasionally ride with a friend's family in a station wagon or SUV with the add-on cargo seats. It wasn't unusual to occasionally ride in a pickup bed on private roads, or pile 8-9 people in the old Caprice for short (< 1mi) trips. Safety was a relative term and left to the discretion and best judgment of the participants. I guess it's being increasingly codified, like many other areas of life. Another thing to point out that many might not know is that the state has an interest in your children and they merely entrust you to raise them to their standards and can take them away if you don't. Many people feel their children are their own to raise as they see fit, but it's more akin to a title of a house - the government owns the rights to the property and merely gives you title to use is so long as you comply with their will/laws. Edit: why disagree?
- throw003away 4y ago
  > Especially considering that many people are likely breaking the laws (not just car seats, but supervision, etc), with no ill effects Car accidents are the #1 cause of death of kids in Mexico. People have 0 literacy about car seats there. > I was riding without a booster seat well before age 8 and we'd occasionally ride with a friend's family in a station wagon or SUV with the add-on cargo seats. This story could have been very different if your car was hit and you were disabled because of, I don't know, something totally preventable.
  - giantg2 4y ago
renox 4y ago
Very funny: we had a hard time finding a car wide enough to accomodate three child safety seats without being too long to park.. Now our children are getting older so this is less an issue, but (Europeans) car are still quite bad for three children: the one in the middle has often a reduced place and/or an unconfortable seat.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  Maybe it’s different in Europe. In the US it’s pretty easy to find narrow car seats that can fit three across, in my experience. We just went on Amazon and bought them.
  - renox 4y ago
    Sure, but the best car seats in the crash tests are wide.
- Someone1234 4y ago
  People who haven't actually tried, or haven't had kids at all, really don't grasp how problematic three car seats across actually is. Car seats are wider than most adults, and there's little standardization (either car or seat design). So you're often left looking for articles or anecdotes that list both specific vehicles with a specific make/model of car seat. It does exist, it is just painful and annoying. Even shops that sell car seats and will let you "test fit" them rarely have three of the same model to demo.
  - renox 4y ago
    Yes, we had two move the seats like this: __X X __X Otherwise it doesn't fit. So far so good? No! The middle seatbelt isn't long enough so we had to buy an extension, which in theory is illegal in France :-( And don't get me started on the stupid 'foot trunks'..
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    Gosh, yes. When my third child was due to be born, I was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry, a mid-sized car, and it was literally impossible to fit three carseats into the backseat. To accommodate a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a newborn, we had to upsize to a minivan. There was no lesser option! Carseats are incredibly wide.
abracadaniel 4y ago
They argue against car seat requirements by pointing out that they don't work as well for older kids, but it's precisely the lack of requirements that result in booster seats not performing as well. No one makes any that standout as better, because they aren't required to. Likely, you aren't going to get better performance without using a 5 point harness, but the market for something like that would be far to small to maintain, so we don't get a choice. I'm not arguing that we should require 5 point harnesses for 8 year olds, but I am pointing out that we didn't have the option to buy infant car seats, as effective as they are now, before requirements were put in place.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Automakers could simple install three additional carseat anchors in the rear seats.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    It's not an issue of lacking anchors, in my experience. It's that there doesn't exist (AFAIK) a car wide enough to accommodate three carseats side-by-side. Carseats are very wide.
    - fps 4y ago
      The average slim carseat is 17" wide. Not just any car seat, but a slim one. It's a whole category of seats. That means 3 side-by-side car seats require 51" of rear hip and rear shoulder room, which is really very doable. In modern cars, your choices include a Subaru Impreza, a Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, BMW 3 series, Audi a4.. I could go on, but basically every manufacturer's smallest car. Yes, you can't fit 3 of Graco's convertable car seat/stroller/play place/activity centers into a typical sedan, but if you plan ahead you can do it easily.
      - pwinnski 4y ago
        Okay, this is a new category of product that didn't exist when I first shopped for carseats. I suppose now the primary issue is that one might have to plan ahead and buy slim carseats from the beginning, since as I recall it, the process was: buy a baby seat, turn it around, then buy a bigger seat passing the baby seat down for the next one, turn that one around, then buy a second bigger seat, and... that's the point of issue unless one planned ahead--or plans to buy all-new seats.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tzs 4y ago
I have no kids nor have I ever had to transport kids so have no experience in this area, but I would guess it would be possible to design a multi-child car seat that can fit N kids in less space than N 1-child car seats. A bit of Googling turns up a company doing that [1], but those are not legal in the US. They are legal in Europe, though. Does Europe have looser standards for child car seats? Do US standards preclude doing something like this in the US? The Multimac 1000 fits 3 kids in the back seat of a Fiat 500. [1] https://www.multimac.com/home https://www.multimac.com/home
- culturestate 4y ago
  > Does Europe have looser standards for child car seats? Do US standards preclude doing something like this in the US? I’d guess they either don’t want to go through the US regulatory approval process or simply aren’t ready to do so yet. It’s massively painful.
allknowingfrog 4y ago
This article argues that the birthrate is too low, and that car seats discourage couples from having more than two children. It doesn't seem to offer any justification for the idea that this is the right way to adjust the birthrate (versus, for example, addressing some of the challenges that stop couples from having children in the first place).
- chucksmash 4y ago
  I don't take the article as saying this is THE way to adjust birthrate. They're just highlighting a case where a) they believe regulation is depressing fertility rates and b) the author presents the regulation as not very effective at improving safety outcomes. So the justification for making the change is: > It is often said that governments can do little to increase the birth rate. > I find this implausible. We do lots of things as the government that decrease the birth rate. We could Stop It. Or do the opposite. The article advocates that loosening car seat restrictions for older children is a way the government could improve fertility rates just by ceasing an action it is currently taking ("Stopping It").
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Things that give people good feels about government are mercilessly attacked by certain types of economists. Safety regulations are one of those things. Thats why there's been a decades long propaganda campaign against Health and Safety laws and regulations. https://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertarianism-and-the-workplace/ https://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertaria...
aporetics 4y ago
I think rock climbing is the best thing ever. In the long run, the experience of rock climbing will spiritually reinvigorate the public. I want more people to rock climb. It’s the knots that are the problem. They take so long to tie, and every gym you go to makes you take tests to make sure you know how to tie them and then vocally double check that they are secure. Studies show that if people didn’t have to spend time tying knots, they’d be more inclined to try rock climbing. At the same time, studies show that excessive safety standards only save a handful of rock climbers each year. It’s not worth it. We should remove any regulations around ropes and knots for rock climbing gyms so more people will rock climb.
- gruez 4y ago
  >We should remove any regulations around ropes and knots for rock climbing gyms so more people will rock climb. we already have that. >Bouldering is a form of free climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without the use of ropes or harnesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering
  - aporetics 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia
- mattnewton 4y ago
  Thank you, I’m glad I’m not the only one; this seems like insanity to compare forecasted potential birth numbers with actual child fatalities. Could car seat regulations be erring on the side of over-zealousness? Sure, but the way to show that is that the safety isn’t increased, not to say “think of the potentially born!”
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    I wonder if you could run this same analysis with condoms and argue that the increased STDs are worth the increased birth rate.
2020sebastian 4y ago
Apparently, West Virginia doesn't enforce this. The only requirement is that parents properly secure any child under age 6 in a seat (https://carseattraveler.com/west-virginia-car-seat-laws/ https://carseattraveler.com/west-virginia-car-seat-laws/). So we should see higher birth rates in that state (I doubt it).
forty 4y ago
Hum I think I read a while ago an article on how the limited constraints/rules there where in the US for child seats were causing many unneeded death, compared to the EU where we have iSize/isofix/etc. But I cannot find the article now. Also I'm not sure what this comparison between the number of lives saved and the number of births not happening is worth. Where in the world is it a fine to sacrifice baby lives so that more people can be born? Feels like they are optimizing cattle ^^
legulere 4y ago
I propose an alternative: we should get our society more independent of cars. Physical activity by walking and cycling around instead of sitting all day also increases health and with it fertility.
benlivengood 4y ago
One could also argue that the U.S.'s lack of affordable high-quality mass transit reduces fertility. And probably by a lot more than having to use a car seat. Owning a car is roughly as expensive as raising one child for 18 years, especially if there's any consideration given to using newer cars with higher safety standards. Cutting to the core of the article, though, is it any wonder that a hypercapitalist society doesn't prefer having children? There's no contract saying that children must contribute back to their parents in any economic way so they are a poor investment compared to bonds or stocks. A large fraction of children go to college (often at their parents' expense) and move out of the local community, newly minted economic units destined to enrich the already super-rich with their labor, which promises no tangible benefits to potential parents. The article touches on the lack of economic incentives for higher fertility but seems to treat it as more of an externality than a fundamental problem. Children used to be a capital investment and are now a cost center.
forty 4y ago
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/child_passenger_safety/cps-factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/child_passenger_saf... Car seat use reduces the risk for injury in a crash by 71–82% for children, when compared with seat belt use alone. Booster seat use reduces the risk for serious injury by 45% for children age 4–8, when compared with seat belt use alone. Seems like reasonable benefits to me.
Moto7451 4y ago
This is an odd hobby horse. I’m neutral on a birth rate increase but this smacks of treating symptoms of economic stress. If you’re in a situation as a society where your income as real purchase power is rising then the solution to this problem is to buy another car (which people do anyway) or outsource your transport. At one point the author mentions some people dislike minivans. If avoiding minivans and SUVs is the reason to avoid a third child, I doubt their heart was in it. Most of the top ten vehicles sold this year are large, expensive, SUVs and Trucks. That’s not the situation we’re in as a country. Housing is a larger expense and more broadly felt problem than car seats. There are some comparable increases in birth rate linked to decreases in home prices i the linked NBER paper. Real Wages are flat for most. Is that car seat really the deal breaker if the rest of expenses for a third child can’t be covered? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39628015/best-selling-cars-2022/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39628015/best-selling-car... https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485 https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/090415/cost-raising-child-america.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/09041... https://money.com/child-care-costs-declining-birth-rate/ https://money.com/child-care-costs-declining-birth-rate/
parksy 4y ago
It's fascinating how deeply automobiles affect every aspect of our lives to the point where seatbelt vs safety seat even matters. To consider a world without significant car commuting each day seems insane to most people because it's what we grew up with and take for granted, as our population grows and new suburbs expand outwards we just need more roads and more cars. What are the alternatives? A different approach to society and urban planning that minimised commute distance between essential locations within cohorts would surely result in far fewer road fatalities but it does seem like few people are willing to make the lifestyle changes needed.
shadowgovt 4y ago
I've wondered on a similar vein to this from time-to-time about the relative numbers on deaths from children being struck in the parking lot of a shopping center vs. children dying from being left in a hot car. The raw numbers are about 205 deaths per year from collisions in non-roadway circumstances (https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10658-study-parking-lots-present-high-risk-of-injury-death-in-children-due-to-lack-of-attention https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10658-study-parking-l...) vs. 38 deaths from heatstroke (https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safety-issues/hotcars/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safe...).

42 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

reboot81 4y ago

Does the planets resources increase with every child born?

whiddershins 4y ago
Yes!
umvi 4y ago
Depends on how you define "resources". The planet's natural resources do not intrinsically increase with every child born, however, the planet's intellectual and problem-solving resources do increase with each child born (*depending on the quality of parents the child was born to).

superchroma 4y ago

nathanaldensr 4y ago
Stop making something as wonderful as children into an -ist. While you may be correct that we have too many people, calling humans who want to or do reproduce--we are not unique in our biological needs to do just that--"natalists" is just a short hop to demonization or worse. Or have you already made that hop, perhaps?
- lolchildren 4y ago
- aaron695 4y ago
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  Well said, I’ve started (tongue-in-cheek) identifying as a natalist just on account of disagreeing strongly with the unhinged anti-natalist perspective rampant in online culture. I also want to have kids, think it’s fine if others do not share this view, but don’t think it’s fine or healthy for others to spew insults at those they disagree with.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  its a way of legitimizing their position. they're trying to turn normal people into "ists" to make it seem like it's not the default position.
causi 4y ago
There aren't too many people in America. How about we focus on fixing the services we have for those already here You're going to have a hard time fixing anything at all when your population pyramid is inverted. For long term stability you need to have one child per adult. The US currently produces 0.85 children per adult. Innovation dies when all the young peoples' work is going to support a massive geriatric population that only consume.
- coldpie 4y ago
  Climate change is the #2 reason I'm not having kids; I think it's unethical to bring children into a world doomed to war & famine. (The #1 reason is that I don't like being around children.) If you want folks to have more kids, you need to address the reasons they're not having them. As the OP of this thread and myself indicate, environmental concerns are a big reason.
- bregma 4y ago
  All Ponzi schemes eventually fail. If you're paying current dividends out of new capital, you're running a Ponzi scheme. Find another way to fix things before it's too late.
secondbreakfast 4y ago
I disagree that there are too many people. Have you read much about the Malthus/George debates? Malthus has now been wrong for 200 years (and counting).
- superchroma 4y ago
  There are whales full of plastic and the rain isn't safe to drink. How can adding more humans help??
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Because the humans that are currently existing aren't helping doesn't mean that one that might come along later doesn't have that "Eureka!" moment.
  - secondbreakfast 4y ago
    Reminds me of the George Carlin bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSi9NW5u3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSi9NW5u3E Humor aside, it's a depressing worldview to me that each marginal human is a net negative. I take the opposite view, that each human is a net positive - and we need all the brainpower we can get to solve all of our problems.
    - ErikVandeWater 4y ago
      Some people are certainly not contributing much brainpower. If only the smartest people were having kids I could see this being true.
    - superchroma 4y ago
      We could solve a lot of our problems right now if people were prepared to change how they live and accept a decent amount more responsibility (e.g. sort waste by hand, etc.). Scaling up problems typically hasn't helped, and you get novel issues at large scale (e.g. parasites and diseases thrive due to monoculture in huge farms). As Bill Burr noted, we could all drive tanks to work if there weren't as many of us. It's cynical, but there's more room for largesse at small scale.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
There is so much vitriol in this statement. The declining birthrate is not as obviously a good thing as you make it out to be, and not everyone shares your cynicism on the state and fate of humanity. Comments like these don’t add much value, but sure do inject a lot of negativity into these discussions of family and society.
- strangattractor 4y ago
  Binary thinking. The question is not whether there are downsides to a declining birthrate (there are) but whether there are even larger downsides to over population (pollution, resource depletion, destruction of other species). Musk's solution is simply find another planet to trash. You simply choose to fiddle as the Earth burns - literally.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    No, I simply choose to treat the decisions of others that I disagree with a bit more respect and candor than you do. You are too comfortable with lecturing other individuals, and I doubt you’d communicate like this with a stranger in person. Especially when the thing you’re criticizing is biologically hardwired result of two people that love one another and want to share a life together.
    - superchroma 4y ago
      You are also lecturing others. Anyway, I disagree. Now more than ever it is necessary to examine and weigh the desires of the lizard brain. The lizard brain will never find equilibrium when it has supremacy in its locality and has desires. We know this. We've seen it in nature, and we've lived it ourselves. We're too powerful and capable to be contained by our surroundings, so now we're going to have to think our way out of this or cook the planet.
    - strangattractor 4y ago
      1. You are right - I probably would not speak to someone in person like that. I apologize. 2. I have a raised a child with some one I love. We made a decision to limit the size of our family for the reasons I stated above. I do not begrudge others making a different decision. I dis-like it when they bemoan the fact that their decision has consequences they don't like.

h2odragon 4y ago

This is about child safety seats; not the big bench seats that cars used to have where one could more easily arrange the act of conception, than one can in modern cars with bucket seats, consoles, and etc. You could get farther in the back seat of a '72 Cuda than you could on a minivan bench seat.

jollyllama 4y ago
Yeah, I've thought before about how those track with the birth rate decline.
Gravityloss 4y ago
Well, the child seat in the back seat is also in the way of conception of siblings, so there's both...

burlesona 4y ago

This resonates with me. It’s beyond tedious to get the kids in and out of the car seats all the time, and needing to buy a larger car to fit more than two kids gave me significant pause. We eventually decided to have more kids, and the positives far outweigh the negatives for us, but to this day the hassle of loading and unloading the car to go places is the single biggest negative experience of raising children. It adds an extra 5-10 minutes on each end of every trip compared to adults just being able to get in and out on their own.

forty 4y ago
I don't know how old your kids are, but mine are 3 & 5 and they can seat and buckle on their own, so that extra time doesn't last for too long at least (seats are mostly annoying when I need to transfer the seats to another car and then back to mine)
- D13Fd 4y ago
  Agreed. I’m starting to think the people who are complaining don’t actually have multiple kids.
mguerville 4y ago
With one single child I barely notice, but thinking about it it does probably take 2-3 minutes so your 5-10 minutes estimates is probably spot on for multiple kids. Living in a midwestern city and relying on street parking I do dread the loading/unloading in the winter, has there been any attempt at improving this product category on the speed of use dimension?
- adsfgdsafdasf 4y ago
  the time required is an exponential function with multiple kids
- D13Fd 4y ago
  Mine were able to buckle themselves by at 2.5 or so. It’s not that hard. So even having 4 kids under 6, I rarely had to deal with buckling more than one at a time. Plus IMO 30 seconds is a better estimate than 2-3 minutes unless they are fighting you or somewhere hard to reach. It’s one check buck and two leg buckles. I will say that installing car seats is an absolute pain of a task.

fps 4y ago

There are plenty of narrow car seats that will fit 3 across in any car. I ran 3 Diono Radians in the back seat of a second gen Prius and there was plenty of space. Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children.

throw003away 4y ago
> Car seats and cars are the least expensive part of raising young children. Yes but cars and driving are so holy to people. While the effect discovered was small, it seems subjectively true to me that people spend way more time thinking about car and car shit than they ought to.
greesil 4y ago
It's car seats that are affecting fertility, and definitely couldn't be the cost of raising a child. /s
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Money and time are fungible on a societal level. If you throw up barriers to entry in the form of time and/or money you will get less of whatever it is you're throwing barriers in front of. Car seats are just one example of a barrier.
  - greesil 4y ago
    I'm going to guess you don't have kids.
    - btilly 4y ago
      Your snark is uncalled for. I completely agree with the comment and I have 4 teenagers. In fact having children has made me more acutely aware of the issue, not less. Because now I have more things I want to do, and face more barriers of both time and money that I have to trade off.
  - D13Fd 4y ago

antiterra 4y ago

> 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). Like many of the other Freakonomics conclusions, this one is at best oversimplified, and at worst actively dangerous. To simply quote it as uncontested fact is ridiculously incompetent. For convenience, I’ll just link to the breathless (but sourced) assessment of the earlier study by a pediatrician at 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...

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Without even jumping into the detail of the study, for most toddlers under 3 year old with an average height, a three point seatbelt would have the chest strap crossing at neck height. Irrespective of statistics, common sense would dictate that using your neck region to restrain any human at multiple G's impact, is most definitely not a good idea.
- btilly 4y ago
  Booster seats exist to solve exactly that problem, and are much more reasonable on their width. The problem comes when you have multiple small children that need an actual fixed car seat.
  - D13Fd 4y ago
    This is a really not that much of a problem unless you have a compact sedan. I have 4 kids. You can fit 3 car seats in the back/middle row of many cars. They make narrow seats for this purpose. In my experience it’s harder to find a good narrow booster than a narrow five-point-harness car seat. The problem is that boosters don’t have their own belts and can block the seat belt path if seat spacing is tight.
RajT88 4y ago
> Like many of the other Freakonomics conclusions Yes! Thank you! They are about as bad as Malcolm Gladwell. And yet I know plenty of finance guys who take it as gospel.

giantg2 4y ago

While I feel we need to be gradually reducing the number of people on the planet (can anyone point me to the number of humans earth can sustainably support?), I agree with what the article is saying. It seems to me one of the biggest things is the pace of change and potential for criminal charges. Especially considering that many people are likely breaking the laws (not just car seats, but supervision, etc), with no ill effects, and the laws are only selectively enforced. Is there an actual net benefit? And all the while parents have to keep up with increasing and changing laws, which I doubt many do. There's a risk of civil or criminal penalties related to children, and increasing costs (including mental) associated with compliance. I have a truck. You cannot have more than one rear facing seat in the back if you have two adults in the front. When I was a kid (not too long ago) I was riding without a booster seat well before age 8 and we'd occasionally ride with a friend's family in a station wagon or SUV with the add-on cargo seats. It wasn't unusual to occasionally ride in a pickup bed on private roads, or pile 8-9 people in the old Caprice for short (< 1mi) trips. Safety was a relative term and left to the discretion and best judgment of the participants. I guess it's being increasingly codified, like many other areas of life. Another thing to point out that many might not know is that the state has an interest in your children and they merely entrust you to raise them to their standards and can take them away if you don't. Many people feel their children are their own to raise as they see fit, but it's more akin to a title of a house - the government owns the rights to the property and merely gives you title to use is so long as you comply with their will/laws. Edit: why disagree?

throw003away 4y ago
> Especially considering that many people are likely breaking the laws (not just car seats, but supervision, etc), with no ill effects Car accidents are the #1 cause of death of kids in Mexico. People have 0 literacy about car seats there. > I was riding without a booster seat well before age 8 and we'd occasionally ride with a friend's family in a station wagon or SUV with the add-on cargo seats. This story could have been very different if your car was hit and you were disabled because of, I don't know, something totally preventable.
- giantg2 4y ago

renox 4y ago

Very funny: we had a hard time finding a car wide enough to accomodate three child safety seats without being too long to park.. Now our children are getting older so this is less an issue, but (Europeans) car are still quite bad for three children: the one in the middle has often a reduced place and/or an unconfortable seat.

D13Fd 4y ago
Maybe it’s different in Europe. In the US it’s pretty easy to find narrow car seats that can fit three across, in my experience. We just went on Amazon and bought them.
- renox 4y ago
  Sure, but the best car seats in the crash tests are wide.
Someone1234 4y ago
People who haven't actually tried, or haven't had kids at all, really don't grasp how problematic three car seats across actually is. Car seats are wider than most adults, and there's little standardization (either car or seat design). So you're often left looking for articles or anecdotes that list both specific vehicles with a specific make/model of car seat. It does exist, it is just painful and annoying. Even shops that sell car seats and will let you "test fit" them rarely have three of the same model to demo.
- renox 4y ago
  Yes, we had two move the seats like this: __X X __X Otherwise it doesn't fit. So far so good? No! The middle seatbelt isn't long enough so we had to buy an extension, which in theory is illegal in France :-( And don't get me started on the stupid 'foot trunks'..
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Gosh, yes. When my third child was due to be born, I was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry, a mid-sized car, and it was literally impossible to fit three carseats into the backseat. To accommodate a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a newborn, we had to upsize to a minivan. There was no lesser option! Carseats are incredibly wide.

abracadaniel 4y ago

They argue against car seat requirements by pointing out that they don't work as well for older kids, but it's precisely the lack of requirements that result in booster seats not performing as well. No one makes any that standout as better, because they aren't required to. Likely, you aren't going to get better performance without using a 5 point harness, but the market for something like that would be far to small to maintain, so we don't get a choice. I'm not arguing that we should require 5 point harnesses for 8 year olds, but I am pointing out that we didn't have the option to buy infant car seats, as effective as they are now, before requirements were put in place.

germinalphrase 4y ago
Automakers could simple install three additional carseat anchors in the rear seats.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  It's not an issue of lacking anchors, in my experience. It's that there doesn't exist (AFAIK) a car wide enough to accommodate three carseats side-by-side. Carseats are very wide.
  - fps 4y ago
    The average slim carseat is 17" wide. Not just any car seat, but a slim one. It's a whole category of seats. That means 3 side-by-side car seats require 51" of rear hip and rear shoulder room, which is really very doable. In modern cars, your choices include a Subaru Impreza, a Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sentra, Ford Focus, BMW 3 series, Audi a4.. I could go on, but basically every manufacturer's smallest car. Yes, you can't fit 3 of Graco's convertable car seat/stroller/play place/activity centers into a typical sedan, but if you plan ahead you can do it easily.
    - pwinnski 4y ago
      Okay, this is a new category of product that didn't exist when I first shopped for carseats. I suppose now the primary issue is that one might have to plan ahead and buy slim carseats from the beginning, since as I recall it, the process was: buy a baby seat, turn it around, then buy a bigger seat passing the baby seat down for the next one, turn that one around, then buy a second bigger seat, and... that's the point of issue unless one planned ahead--or plans to buy all-new seats.

deleted 4y ago

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tzs 4y ago

I have no kids nor have I ever had to transport kids so have no experience in this area, but I would guess it would be possible to design a multi-child car seat that can fit N kids in less space than N 1-child car seats. A bit of Googling turns up a company doing that [1], but those are not legal in the US. They are legal in Europe, though. Does Europe have looser standards for child car seats? Do US standards preclude doing something like this in the US? The Multimac 1000 fits 3 kids in the back seat of a Fiat 500. [1] https://www.multimac.com/home https://www.multimac.com/home

culturestate 4y ago
> Does Europe have looser standards for child car seats? Do US standards preclude doing something like this in the US? I’d guess they either don’t want to go through the US regulatory approval process or simply aren’t ready to do so yet. It’s massively painful.

allknowingfrog 4y ago

This article argues that the birthrate is too low, and that car seats discourage couples from having more than two children. It doesn't seem to offer any justification for the idea that this is the right way to adjust the birthrate (versus, for example, addressing some of the challenges that stop couples from having children in the first place).

chucksmash 4y ago
I don't take the article as saying this is THE way to adjust birthrate. They're just highlighting a case where a) they believe regulation is depressing fertility rates and b) the author presents the regulation as not very effective at improving safety outcomes. So the justification for making the change is: > It is often said that governments can do little to increase the birth rate. > I find this implausible. We do lots of things as the government that decrease the birth rate. We could Stop It. Or do the opposite. The article advocates that loosening car seat restrictions for older children is a way the government could improve fertility rates just by ceasing an action it is currently taking ("Stopping It").
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Things that give people good feels about government are mercilessly attacked by certain types of economists. Safety regulations are one of those things. Thats why there's been a decades long propaganda campaign against Health and Safety laws and regulations. https://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertarianism-and-the-workplace/ https://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertaria...

aporetics 4y ago

I think rock climbing is the best thing ever. In the long run, the experience of rock climbing will spiritually reinvigorate the public. I want more people to rock climb. It’s the knots that are the problem. They take so long to tie, and every gym you go to makes you take tests to make sure you know how to tie them and then vocally double check that they are secure. Studies show that if people didn’t have to spend time tying knots, they’d be more inclined to try rock climbing. At the same time, studies show that excessive safety standards only save a handful of rock climbers each year. It’s not worth it. We should remove any regulations around ropes and knots for rock climbing gyms so more people will rock climb.

gruez 4y ago
>We should remove any regulations around ropes and knots for rock climbing gyms so more people will rock climb. we already have that. >Bouldering is a form of free climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without the use of ropes or harnesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouldering
- aporetics 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia
mattnewton 4y ago
Thank you, I’m glad I’m not the only one; this seems like insanity to compare forecasted potential birth numbers with actual child fatalities. Could car seat regulations be erring on the side of over-zealousness? Sure, but the way to show that is that the safety isn’t increased, not to say “think of the potentially born!”
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  I wonder if you could run this same analysis with condoms and argue that the increased STDs are worth the increased birth rate.

2020sebastian 4y ago

Apparently, West Virginia doesn't enforce this. The only requirement is that parents properly secure any child under age 6 in a seat (https://carseattraveler.com/west-virginia-car-seat-laws/ https://carseattraveler.com/west-virginia-car-seat-laws/). So we should see higher birth rates in that state (I doubt it).

forty 4y ago

Hum I think I read a while ago an article on how the limited constraints/rules there where in the US for child seats were causing many unneeded death, compared to the EU where we have iSize/isofix/etc. But I cannot find the article now. Also I'm not sure what this comparison between the number of lives saved and the number of births not happening is worth. Where in the world is it a fine to sacrifice baby lives so that more people can be born? Feels like they are optimizing cattle ^^

legulere 4y ago

I propose an alternative: we should get our society more independent of cars. Physical activity by walking and cycling around instead of sitting all day also increases health and with it fertility.

benlivengood 4y ago

One could also argue that the U.S.'s lack of affordable high-quality mass transit reduces fertility. And probably by a lot more than having to use a car seat. Owning a car is roughly as expensive as raising one child for 18 years, especially if there's any consideration given to using newer cars with higher safety standards. Cutting to the core of the article, though, is it any wonder that a hypercapitalist society doesn't prefer having children? There's no contract saying that children must contribute back to their parents in any economic way so they are a poor investment compared to bonds or stocks. A large fraction of children go to college (often at their parents' expense) and move out of the local community, newly minted economic units destined to enrich the already super-rich with their labor, which promises no tangible benefits to potential parents. The article touches on the lack of economic incentives for higher fertility but seems to treat it as more of an externality than a fundamental problem. Children used to be a capital investment and are now a cost center.

forty 4y ago

https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/child_passenger_safety/cps-factsheet.html https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/child_passenger_saf... Car seat use reduces the risk for injury in a crash by 71–82% for children, when compared with seat belt use alone. Booster seat use reduces the risk for serious injury by 45% for children age 4–8, when compared with seat belt use alone. Seems like reasonable benefits to me.

Moto7451 4y ago

This is an odd hobby horse. I’m neutral on a birth rate increase but this smacks of treating symptoms of economic stress. If you’re in a situation as a society where your income as real purchase power is rising then the solution to this problem is to buy another car (which people do anyway) or outsource your transport. At one point the author mentions some people dislike minivans. If avoiding minivans and SUVs is the reason to avoid a third child, I doubt their heart was in it. Most of the top ten vehicles sold this year are large, expensive, SUVs and Trucks. That’s not the situation we’re in as a country. Housing is a larger expense and more broadly felt problem than car seats. There are some comparable increases in birth rate linked to decreases in home prices i the linked NBER paper. Real Wages are flat for most. Is that car seat really the deal breaker if the rest of expenses for a third child can’t be covered? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39628015/best-selling-cars-2022/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39628015/best-selling-car... https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485 https://www.nber.org/papers/w17485 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/090415/cost-raising-child-america.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/09041... https://money.com/child-care-costs-declining-birth-rate/ https://money.com/child-care-costs-declining-birth-rate/

parksy 4y ago

It's fascinating how deeply automobiles affect every aspect of our lives to the point where seatbelt vs safety seat even matters. To consider a world without significant car commuting each day seems insane to most people because it's what we grew up with and take for granted, as our population grows and new suburbs expand outwards we just need more roads and more cars. What are the alternatives? A different approach to society and urban planning that minimised commute distance between essential locations within cohorts would surely result in far fewer road fatalities but it does seem like few people are willing to make the lifestyle changes needed.

shadowgovt 4y ago

I've wondered on a similar vein to this from time-to-time about the relative numbers on deaths from children being struck in the parking lot of a shopping center vs. children dying from being left in a hot car. The raw numbers are about 205 deaths per year from collisions in non-roadway circumstances (https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10658-study-parking-lots-present-high-risk-of-injury-death-in-children-due-to-lack-of-attention https://www.uab.edu/news/research/item/10658-study-parking-l...) vs. 38 deaths from heatstroke (https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safety-issues/hotcars/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safe...).