[randerson]

Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat (which will be close to the dashboard) with enough force to snap their spine.

[shiroiuma]

>But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face.

They've been known to knock children's head off even. Because of that, they started putting switches in trucks to disable the passenger airbag, and also working to reduce deployment force, esp. if the weight in the passenger seat was low.

[cucumber3732842]

>Legal or not, there are real safety reasons not to put a small child up front. I bet your car's user manual says not to put kids up front. The safety systems are designed with minimum height & weight assumptions. The front seat belts aren't designed for a car seat. But most importantly, airbags explode with serious force that can break bones in a kids face. If they're in a rear facing car seat it can strike the seat (which will be close to the dashboard) with enough force to snap their spine.

He already said he told people who were hand wringing to pound sand. What's the point of more hand wringing?

Also, trucks from the 90s typically even have passenger airbags.