Are kids actually safer in car seats? (Freakonomics) - An old one but still worth reading (or watching attached video) if you haven't seen it before.
I rememeber first reading about this before I had children. Now I have 2 of my own the topic sems all the more important. Whilst this study is driven more by analysis of actual crash data and therefore could have it's limitations, it is still something any parent should I hope be interested to read not least given the fact that it concludes that kids 2Yrs+ are no more likely to survive a crash using a car seat as they would wearing a seat belt. Also just as interesting is the statistic that 70-80% of all car seats bought are actually fitted incorrectly (This also seems to be backed up by Volvo in a recent study) and hence any actual perceived benefit of the seat is hugely diminished if not adding risk to your kids.
One last thing. Since having kids of my own I have become a lot more attentive to other parents & kids such as; when I drive by a moving car and the kids have their heads out of the sun roof I almost feel sick (Although do have a distant memory of doing this when I was a kid!). Each to their own and who am I to judge but most statistics agree wearing a seatbelt adds about 70% chance to your survival chances in a serious accident and driving with your kids heads out of the roof is not typically mentioned as a method to increase their odds of survival! I have also realised driving around Taipei that so few kids here appear to be wearing their seat belts and seem free & permitted to roam around the car? To be fair I only notice this maybe 2-3times a day so maybe these are just outliers but it still angers me. I seem to remember as kids we also roamed around the car but then I guess nobody really knew back in the 70's what we know today.
The July 10, 2005, Freakonomics column, “The Seat-Belt Solution: How Much Good Do Car Seats Do?” is about the efficacy of child car seats versus plain old seat belts.
You can read the original article here;
Also checkout this freakonomics blog which includes many other responses & updates to the data over the years from the freakonomics team & other industry related people/sources;
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/car-seats/
Alternatively watch the Ted video presented by Steve Levitt;
