The other big problem is increasing guidance from child safety experts to seat children in reversed seating positions. Once you take a normal infant car seat an

The other big problem is increasing guidance from child safety experts to seat children in reversed seating positions. Once you take a normal infant car seat and reverse it, and the front passenger (or driver) legroom completely disappears unless you're driving a minivan or an SUV. Three years ago, the guidance was to keep the infant car seat rear facing until age 1. Then it became until the child reaches 20 lbs. Now the guidance is to push to age 2 with the additional recommendations to go even longer if possible. I believe that the proliferation of side impact rear airbags has forced the safety guidelines in this direction. Side impact rear airbags are a great safety feature for adults, but they can be fatal to small children. A car seat is the only real defense you have against them. And the manufacturers aren't taking chances with letting the airbags be disabled based on weight requirements. Nobody likes to take chances with their kids, but we've also gone a little nuts with safety in the US, using "bigger is better" to handle every safety issue and with all sides so worried about getting sued that we've created this unsustainable escalation of safety features in cars. This has the net effect of keeping us in larger cars for longer and preying on our emotions to keep us from switching to more practically sized vehicles. As a parent who tries to make practical and rational decisions, I find it really frustrating.