[niknikson]

Huge kudos to the author for taking the time to investigate this issue. Interestingly in the book Freakeconomics from 2005 they did an analysis on car seats and found that after 2 years of age they don't make much of a difference. During their study the came across the same type of behavior from child seat manufacturers - ignoring requests for information.

[jzl]

The Freakonomics guys are notorious for using shoddy research, jumping to bad conclusions, and generally publishing provocative conclusions just for the sake of provocativeness that don't hold up to even a whiff of debunking. I rolled my eyeballs through the entire book.

Good rebuttal of the car seat story here, with lots of links: https://thecarseatlady.com/freakonomics-fallacy-an-economist...

[Retric]

‘The car seat lady’ looks like a rather biased source. Which does not mean their wrong.

This is one of the few unrelated looks into the topic and it shows relatively minimal benefits. Likely still worth it, but less critical than generally perceived. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_surprising_stats_abo...

[NLips]

That’s a terrible talk! In particular, why on earth is the car seat moving forwards in the crash test? Most car seats I’ve seen are essentially bolted to the rest of the seat. Is this a Europe / USA thing?

[Retric]

It’s common for car seats to be attached to a seat belt which adds some play. From a random manual, page 16 gives an example using seat belts: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/D1xDQvLJ3iS...

The LATCH system is seems to be bolted on, but not always used. It’s still going to bounce in a crash as the seat cushion has a lot of give under these forces. Further, in terms of real world companions you need to understand people don’t nessisarily use safety equipment correctly especially if it’s more time consuming. Comparing LATCh attachment vs seat belts is a whole other discussion.

[dragonwriter]

> It’s common for car seats to be attached to a seat belt which adds some play.

Proper installation with a seatbelt involves engaging the retractor so it has basically no play at all.

It's true that improper installation is quite common, though.

> The LATCH system is seems to be bolted on, but not always used. It’s still going to bounce in a crash as the seat cushion has a lot of give under these forces.

A forward-facing seat using LATCH should usually be installed with three point LATCH (the third is over the seat back), so without much play in any direction, certainly not forward.

Two point LATCH can move up-down and side-to-side a bit, but still not forward.

[Retric]

The 2 point LATCH system is attached below not behind the car seat’s center of gravity, so under heavy acceleration it depresses the car’s seat cushion and rotates forward then bounces up and back. Minimizing this is the reasoning behind the 3rd attachment point.

[jzl]

In the comments of the article I posted there is some discussion about proper seat installation. I thought this commenter summed it pretty well:

"While it may be possible that an improperly installed car seat may not be any more effective than a seat belt alone, and that probably accounts for at least some of the Freakanomics data, that is a SOLVABLE problem. Ditching the car seat is one “solution,” but I would argue that a much better solution would be to meet with a child passenger safety technician to make sure your car seat is being used in a manner that would keep your child as safe as possible. “Other people don’t use car seats correctly, so I won’t use one at all” is a rather absurd conclusion, don’t you think?"

That point aside, the bigger one is that they concentrate on fatalities more than injuries, where there is a ton of data on the effectiveness of seats for children older than 2.

Generally speaking, Freakonomics does raise many interesting points that make you think more critically about causality. But more often than not they end up drawing a blanket conclusion that is as lazy and un-nuanced as the one they claim to have debunked.

[Retric]

> While it may be possible that an improperly installed car seat may not be any more effective than a seat belt alone, and that probably accounts for at least some of the Freakanomics data, that is a SOLVABLE problem.

That's not going to explain the data. The numbers require seat belts to be about as safe as car seats for children 2+ on average. Thus, unless an improperly installed car seat was significantly worse than an average seat belt, it's all kind of a wash.

Anyway, this is more about public policy than individual choice. If your spending public money to promote something it must increase the average safety levels or your wasting peoples money.

PS: As to improper use, when swapping multiple car seats it’s very easy to forget to attach one. With seat belts it’s more visually obvious their not in use. That’s a huge safety risk and could account for the unexpected data.

[silencio]

usually there's a seat belt locking mechanism or the car seat itself has lockoffs to lock the belt in place. the belt isn't freely retracting and extending.

latch/isofix has limitations which is why it's not the de facto install mechanism across the board. there's a 65lb weight limit on most anchors (including the car seat - which can be 30+lbs by itself), and most sedans don't have a set in the middle rear seating position but a lot of people will incorrectly install it that way.

it is okay for a car seat to have a little give. they're designed not to be installed so tight it damages your car in the process. rear facing car seats will sometimes flip into the seat back and 'cocoon' in more severe accidents, and that's by design.

[georgeecollins]

OK but alternately it seems clear that a lot of car seat marketing is aimed at the paranoia of new parents. (Speaking as a patent btw). Do you worry your seat belts have expired? Do you worry your air bags have expired? Do you ask an EMT / Fireman to adjust your adult seat belt?

People worry like crazy about if they have the wrong child seat, when in my experience they have no idea if the smoke detector in their house has a battery.

[journalctl]

There’s also only so much you can realistically do to keep you and/or a child safe in a car accident. Cars are just dangerous, and although safety has improved, slamming into anything at 60+ mi/h can only be made so safe. Combine a need for control with the anxiety of being a parent, and it’s no wonder car seat marketing works so well. After a certain point, though, some things are out of your control, and people should take solace in realizing that they can only realistically do so much to keep their kids safe. (This applies to everything outside of your country, by the way.)