Nice work. I read the headline expecting to roll my eyes at the whole thing, but I am convinced that the association is real. Though, I'm not entirely convinced that the survey data can support a causal model, it is suggestive.
Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle here. It would be political malpractice to liberalize these safety rules. The first child who dies or is critically injured after eliminating the post two year old requirements is a political disaster for whoever changed the rules.
If we're going to incentivize parenting, let's replace schools with an actually decent childminding service that works for parents instead of against them.
I was going to note the upfront nature of the car seat costs, and how they are lumped timewise with most of the other new baby spending, particularly the cost of having the kid in the hospital. All three of ours were c-sections and ran into the 5 digits in terms of cost. Throw in an additional car seat and in the case of the last one a whole new mini-van, and that was a big chunk of money all at once. How many people have more than 30k$ just sitting around so they can cover all that without a loan? It also makes that third kid over twice as expensive as the first two in the short term.
In general, one has to wonder about the logic of e.g. preventing those 1 or 2 pediatric head injuries a year in exchange for tens of thousands of kids never even existing. A doctor at least might be myopic about the costs of that safety, since they only see the kids they treat and don't really keep track of how many are being born over all. For the lawmakers, I think you have it right that they simply don't care about what the effects of their decisions are on other people, only whether or not those decisions benefit themselves and their careers. We make a mistake giving the rule makers the benefit of the doubt when it is obvious they don't bother to find out.
This is my first time hearing about 13 year olds being relegated to the back seat, and discovered my state of Washington requires that children up to age thirteen be transported in the back seat of the car "when practical."
I have to wonder if this even nets out to no effect on safety, and is actually a net negative. Kids that age can have conversations with their parents, and it's slightly more distracting to engage with someone in the backseat than someone riding shotgun. You also can't separate bickering siblings by having one of them ride up front.
Drivers also can't delegate things like updating the navigation, changing the radio station, climate control, etc. to riders in the backseat. At least not without them unbuckling their seat belts to reach forward between the front seats.
One additional item in the cost category that I’ve yet to see any good studies on (though I haven’t looked too hard) - with relatively high geographic mobility among the higher socioeconomic cohort where the study finds the most effect, it anecdotally seems many families don’t live near other family anymore... removing a source of “free” babysitting especially in those younger years where the difficulty dragging two or three car seat age kids to the grocery store is sometimes soul crushing. With less connection to neighbors (this well studied) and cultural resistance to leaving kids with neighbors anyway, this seems to greatly increase the cost of this “3 seat tax”.
When my wife and I had our third child, we got a minivan because there was no way to fit three car seats in the back of her car, despite the fact that it nominally held three passengers in the back.
It can always be worse. Where I live in Europe car seats are required until age 12 (!!). (Technically it's for any child under 150cm in height or 36kg in weight)
Hi, I'm David Solomon, one of the authors of the paper. I just wanted to say thanks heaps for doing such a fantastic writeup, especially in terms of explaining everything very clearly and in going into tons of detail. In particular, the estimates of the all-in dollar cost that prevents or subsidizes a birth is a really neat angle that we hadn't thought about, but something we're definitely going to consider more. I really appreciate it.
What you write makes sense, but what would persist would be the awful perception that the govt. that changed the law was reckless with a child's life. Stories always win against facts in these sorts of things.
Even in nanny state Denmark, kids only need to be 135 cm to be out of a car seat (6-7 yo). And the third child in the middle seat isn't required to use a car seat. So many regulations in USA+Canada are so irrational it boggles my mind.
Nice work. I read the headline expecting to roll my eyes at the whole thing, but I am convinced that the association is real. Though, I'm not entirely convinced that the survey data can support a causal model, it is suggestive.
Unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle here. It would be political malpractice to liberalize these safety rules. The first child who dies or is critically injured after eliminating the post two year old requirements is a political disaster for whoever changed the rules.
If we're going to incentivize parenting, let's replace schools with an actually decent childminding service that works for parents instead of against them.
I was going to note the upfront nature of the car seat costs, and how they are lumped timewise with most of the other new baby spending, particularly the cost of having the kid in the hospital. All three of ours were c-sections and ran into the 5 digits in terms of cost. Throw in an additional car seat and in the case of the last one a whole new mini-van, and that was a big chunk of money all at once. How many people have more than 30k$ just sitting around so they can cover all that without a loan? It also makes that third kid over twice as expensive as the first two in the short term.
In general, one has to wonder about the logic of e.g. preventing those 1 or 2 pediatric head injuries a year in exchange for tens of thousands of kids never even existing. A doctor at least might be myopic about the costs of that safety, since they only see the kids they treat and don't really keep track of how many are being born over all. For the lawmakers, I think you have it right that they simply don't care about what the effects of their decisions are on other people, only whether or not those decisions benefit themselves and their careers. We make a mistake giving the rule makers the benefit of the doubt when it is obvious they don't bother to find out.
Perhaps lowering the age for mandating car seat laws would also cause parents to drive even more carefully and have fewer accidents.
Washington State requires car or booster seats until age 12 now: https://wtsc.wa.gov/programs-priorities/seat-belts-child-restraints/
This is my first time hearing about 13 year olds being relegated to the back seat, and discovered my state of Washington requires that children up to age thirteen be transported in the back seat of the car "when practical."
I have to wonder if this even nets out to no effect on safety, and is actually a net negative. Kids that age can have conversations with their parents, and it's slightly more distracting to engage with someone in the backseat than someone riding shotgun. You also can't separate bickering siblings by having one of them ride up front.
Drivers also can't delegate things like updating the navigation, changing the radio station, climate control, etc. to riders in the backseat. At least not without them unbuckling their seat belts to reach forward between the front seats.
Been waiting years for someone to write this.
One additional item in the cost category that I’ve yet to see any good studies on (though I haven’t looked too hard) - with relatively high geographic mobility among the higher socioeconomic cohort where the study finds the most effect, it anecdotally seems many families don’t live near other family anymore... removing a source of “free” babysitting especially in those younger years where the difficulty dragging two or three car seat age kids to the grocery store is sometimes soul crushing. With less connection to neighbors (this well studied) and cultural resistance to leaving kids with neighbors anyway, this seems to greatly increase the cost of this “3 seat tax”.
When my wife and I had our third child, we got a minivan because there was no way to fit three car seats in the back of her car, despite the fact that it nominally held three passengers in the back.
It can always be worse. Where I live in Europe car seats are required until age 12 (!!). (Technically it's for any child under 150cm in height or 36kg in weight)
Hi, I'm David Solomon, one of the authors of the paper. I just wanted to say thanks heaps for doing such a fantastic writeup, especially in terms of explaining everything very clearly and in going into tons of detail. In particular, the estimates of the all-in dollar cost that prevents or subsidizes a birth is a really neat angle that we hadn't thought about, but something we're definitely going to consider more. I really appreciate it.
What you write makes sense, but what would persist would be the awful perception that the govt. that changed the law was reckless with a child's life. Stories always win against facts in these sorts of things.
What garbage did I just read?
Even in nanny state Denmark, kids only need to be 135 cm to be out of a car seat (6-7 yo). And the third child in the middle seat isn't required to use a car seat. So many regulations in USA+Canada are so irrational it boggles my mind.
How about states that prohibit children in the front seat until age 12?
Who made that law and why??