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One other way that cars are affecting childhood is that car seat requirements keep getting stricter and stricter. It used to be that parents would offer to run

One other way that cars are affecting childhood is that car seat requirements keep getting stricter and stricter. It used to be that parents would offer to run carpools to take kids home from activities. Or if you had a sleepover your friends parents would drive you to a movie. But now that it’s not unheard of for kids to use car seats until they start middle school, it basically requires that one of THEIR parents show up for pickup and drop off. This increases the level of necessary parental involvement needed and gets rid of one little way that kids learned to interact with other adults and families.

cool_dude85 2y ago
The kind of boosters that bigger kids - like, past 1st or 2nd grade - typically use are more or less interchangeable (so you could have an extra booster in the garage for when a kid stays the night, and not worry about fit) and cheap (so, not too bad to pay for the extra booster). They also tend to be pretty quick to put in or take out, unlike car seats for babies. So, it is an additional logistics challenge, but not too bad of one, I'd say.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bcrosby95 2y ago
  We have various local "buy nothing" Facebook groups and through those have never had to pay for a booster seat, despite having 7 - enough to fully outfit both of our cars with them.
  - parpfish 2y ago
    Can you actually fit seven in you car (I assume minivan)? Because that’d be great. I remember groups of sevenish kids piling into a car after a soccer game and getting ice cream. I think little things like that do a lot for your sense of autonomy when you can do something in a public place as a kid without a 1:1 ratio of kid:supervisor.
    - bcrosby95 2y ago
      No, we can fit 6 in the minivan, but we tend to just keep 5 in the minivan and 2 in the other car.
kazinator 2y ago
I strongly suspect that the car seat requirements are the work of industry lobby groups. There is profit to be made when people who have perfectly good child seats have to throw them away, so that others have to buy new ones.
- al_borland 2y ago
  Have you see the TED Talk on car seats from Steven Levitt? Basically, a normal seatbelt would pass the government standards for car seat safety. The industry knows they can take advantage of parents in the name of safety, so they do. At least that’s how it’s looking. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_about_child_carseats?subtitle=en https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo...
qball 2y ago
>This increases the level of necessary parental involvement needed and gets rid of one little way that kids learned to interact with other adults and families. This shit has a direct and measurable impact on birth rates for a negligible increase in safety. It's also humiliating. Yet another policy failure by the bureaucracy.
- qazxcvbnmlp 2y ago
  As a society we are consciously aware of preventing catastrophic losses but dont consider the cost of isolation.
- matteotom 2y ago
  "negligible" safety increase seems to be about 19% reduction in injury vs not using a booster seat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5522634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5522634/ I would love any citation for "This shit has a direct and measurable impact on birth rates", since there's good reason to believe it has a greater than negligible increase in safety
  - normie3000 2y ago
    From the link does this bit mean? > The risk of experiencing an incapacitating/fatal injury was not associated with booster use. It seems to imply that booster seats do not reduce the risk of serious injury or death, but I'm not sure I am reading correctly.
    - matteotom 2y ago
      I’d read that as saying the data are insufficient to prove either way. Likely because there are so many fewer deaths and only 10% of the children used booster seats, so the error bars are too big.
  - parpfish 2y ago
    I think the both rate thing is in reference to studies like those discussed here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c4daDbQD398BmW5k5/on-car-seats-as-contraception https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c4daDbQD398BmW5k5/on-car-sea... The idea is that you can only fit two car seats in the backseat and upgrading to a larger car that could fit three is enough of an expense/hassle that it discourages having a third child

cool_dude85 2y ago

The kind of boosters that bigger kids - like, past 1st or 2nd grade - typically use are more or less interchangeable (so you could have an extra booster in the garage for when a kid stays the night, and not worry about fit) and cheap (so, not too bad to pay for the extra booster). They also tend to be pretty quick to put in or take out, unlike car seats for babies. So, it is an additional logistics challenge, but not too bad of one, I'd say.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bcrosby95 2y ago
We have various local "buy nothing" Facebook groups and through those have never had to pay for a booster seat, despite having 7 - enough to fully outfit both of our cars with them.
- parpfish 2y ago
  Can you actually fit seven in you car (I assume minivan)? Because that’d be great. I remember groups of sevenish kids piling into a car after a soccer game and getting ice cream. I think little things like that do a lot for your sense of autonomy when you can do something in a public place as a kid without a 1:1 ratio of kid:supervisor.
  - bcrosby95 2y ago
    No, we can fit 6 in the minivan, but we tend to just keep 5 in the minivan and 2 in the other car.

kazinator 2y ago

I strongly suspect that the car seat requirements are the work of industry lobby groups. There is profit to be made when people who have perfectly good child seats have to throw them away, so that others have to buy new ones.

al_borland 2y ago
Have you see the TED Talk on car seats from Steven Levitt? Basically, a normal seatbelt would pass the government standards for car seat safety. The industry knows they can take advantage of parents in the name of safety, so they do. At least that’s how it’s looking. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_about_child_carseats?subtitle=en https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo...

qball 2y ago

>This increases the level of necessary parental involvement needed and gets rid of one little way that kids learned to interact with other adults and families. This shit has a direct and measurable impact on birth rates for a negligible increase in safety. It's also humiliating. Yet another policy failure by the bureaucracy.

qazxcvbnmlp 2y ago
As a society we are consciously aware of preventing catastrophic losses but dont consider the cost of isolation.
matteotom 2y ago
"negligible" safety increase seems to be about 19% reduction in injury vs not using a booster seat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5522634/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5522634/ I would love any citation for "This shit has a direct and measurable impact on birth rates", since there's good reason to believe it has a greater than negligible increase in safety
- normie3000 2y ago
  From the link does this bit mean? > The risk of experiencing an incapacitating/fatal injury was not associated with booster use. It seems to imply that booster seats do not reduce the risk of serious injury or death, but I'm not sure I am reading correctly.
  - matteotom 2y ago
    I’d read that as saying the data are insufficient to prove either way. Likely because there are so many fewer deaths and only 10% of the children used booster seats, so the error bars are too big.
- parpfish 2y ago
  I think the both rate thing is in reference to studies like those discussed here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c4daDbQD398BmW5k5/on-car-seats-as-contraception https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c4daDbQD398BmW5k5/on-car-sea... The idea is that you can only fit two car seats in the backseat and upgrading to a larger car that could fit three is enough of an expense/hassle that it discourages having a third child