Car seats and fear
If you’re on any parenting listserves, you’ve probably seen this YouTube video already. It was made by the family of a little boy who was killed in a car accident; even though he was in a booster seat and belted in, the seat belt failed, and he was thrown from the car. The video is a tearjerker, and argues for keeping kids in car seats with 5-point harnesses for as long as possible.
A friend forwarded me the video today, and I responded with this link from CarSeat.org, which points out that seat belt failure is extremely rare. She responded that both CarSeat.org and AAP recommend keeping kids in car seats until they reach the height/weight limits, and so that it seems like a "no-brainer" to use a seat with higher limits if one is available.
I had to think for a while to figure out why I had such a strong reaction to this argument. Part of it is defensiveness — at 6, D is shorter and lighter than many 4 year olds. He’s probably going to need a booster until he’s 12. Or maybe 21.* But we haven’t made him stay in a car seat. He’s happier in the booster, and it’s vastly easier to move it from car to car. I don’t like being made to feel like a neglectful parent as a result.
But it’s also that I object to the idea that we’re supposed to protect against any risk we can, no matter how low probability. It’s the same reason I’m not a fan of cord blood banking. So much of parenting seems to be driven by fear these days, and I don’t want to buy into that world view.
* Heck, I sit on a wedge that is essentially an adult booster seat when I drive our older car, which doesn’t have fully adjustable seats — I’m 5′ even, and without the wedge, the curve in the seat hits my back in the wrong places.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:36 am
This is a great example of hyperbole via video. As a statistics fanatic, I tend to believe Steven Levitt in his book, Freakanomics – car seats provide little additional safety for those over 24 months. Since over 80% are installed incorrectly, perhaps less safety. There is a link on the site – Freakanomics.com – which for some reason doesn’t show a permalink – type “car seats” into the search engine to see what he says.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:30 am
The story of the boy who was killed in the accident is sad, but I do not like the YouTube video for the way it presents the information. The song keeps telling me what to feel, and with this sort of thing, I just want to become informed.
That said, the cost of the “safer” booster is, of course, much higher than the regular ones, which we own. My wife will perhaps squirrel away some tax refund money for it, but it makes me think that this matter of car seats and boosters can only be acted upon by families that can afford the fix. I wonder if it’s just another white/suburban/middle class matter.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Ah, the link you have says there’s a foundation that helps get carseats for low-income families.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I had the same weird misgivings about that YouTube video. But you expressed it better. We don’t use Latch on our car seats and the failrure was seat belt failure, so we’d have been screwed either way. It also made me wonder if I was supposed to be less sad if an older child or young adult in a seat belt alone died from the seat belt releasing.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:26 am
This is an excellent take on that video, Elizabeth. Like you, I have children who will remain under the height/weight limit until they’re in graduate school or something. Both of my kids ARE still in car seats. But does that really make them safer? Belts can fail on car seats, too. (And are probably more likely to fail when they’ve been in use for several years, as ours have.) There is no way to control for every risk, and acknowledging that certainly does not make you a neglectful parent.
I can’t argue with the way anybody chooses to work through their grief. But I agree that someone’s particular personal tragedy does not necessarily translate into generalized parenting principles.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:16 am
I’m not sure that cord banking is a fair comparison. Vehicular accidents happen all the time, and car seats that are installed correctly and seat belts that are used properly have been proven to improve passenger safety. I myself have been in three doozy accidents – two of them involving other cars, where the other driver was at fault, and one where I crashed my car and didn’t hit any other cars.
As far as the installation, MCMilker, I think that’s a poor argument. ‘Most people install them wrong, so why bother using them at all?’ It’s not that hard to install them correctly, and many cities have police officers and fire fighters trained in car seat installation, who will inspect your seat installation job for free and help you fix it. Here in Alexandria, a police officer donates his time to do car seat inspections on a regular basis. He meets families outside a busy Target store and gives free seats away to those that need them – whether they be low-income or middle class.
I wouldn’t use the word ‘neglectful’ to describe other parents. But for me, following the wisdom of experts when it comes to carseats is no different from having smoke detectors in the home or locking my door at night. I apply a risk management model to all three: In all three instances, I consider the likelihood of an incident (an accident, fire or burglary) to be very low. However, the consequences of an incident would be very high. The cost of minimizing the likelihood or consequences of an incident is low for my family, so managing for risk seems wholly reasonable. If anything in that equation were to change, my answer would change. So yes, it seems like a “no brainer” to ME. That’s what Basil and I decided for our family, considering our priorities and comfort level with the risks at hand. Everyone is comfortable with a different level of risk. You should do what works for your family.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
While I find car seats important, I can’t get all riled up about them. My kids are always buckled in their car seats/booster, but I drive a car that is 12 years old. There is no latch system in my car, and the nature of my car makes it nearly impossible to install a latch system. I suppose compared to other children, my kids are not nearly as safe, because we use the ole seat belt to fasten their car seats to the seat. I just can’t get riled up about it. When I can afford a newer car with the safer system, I’ll get it. Until that, I’ll just do my best with what we have.
Morever, I switched my older child to a booster as soon as I could: she would scream and cry the entire time in the 5 point harnesses, and I felt it far more dangerous for me to drive with a child screaming in my ear.
February 27th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
I am just annoying enough that I would have probably e-mailed my friend back and said that after seeing the video, I’d decided that my kid wasn’t ever going to ride in a car again, and further more, i’m just going to keep them at home strapped in their carseats all the time. Maybe that’s why I don’t have many friends :-). No, not really. But, I do have a tendency to say things like this to my sister, and it drives her crazy.
Merseydotes points out that she’s made a personal choice about carseats for her own family, which she believes balances her risk/cost equation. I think it would be rather ridiculous for me to question that choice on an individual level (as long as mine doesn’t get questioned either, which is to put my kids into the minimum restraint device required by the law).
I live in Washington state, where as of June, children will be required to ride in a booster seat until they’re 8 years old, as recommended by the carseat experts. It’s a law instigated by a video like the YouTube video. And, it’s when the choice interacts with the law, that I find the whole situation problematic. I think the threshold for safety has to be set somewhere (I do actually believe kids should be in carseats at some age). But, the legal bar shouldn’t be set so high that many people disagree with it.
In our safety equation, we include the safety of our driving (no accidents in 20+ years), the nature of our driving (during the day, rarely on the freeway, and rarely above 60 m/h). Given those risk assessments we think a booster is good, and like the independence it gives our kid (she clambers in buckles herself in), and keeps track of her booster for carpool days (actually adoreable, she takes the responsibility very seriously).
There’s also a serious cost to the law (personally, for families that simply can’t afford the more expensive carseats & the cars that go with them, and thus can’t keep up with the upper-middle-class parenting rules). No one really talks about the SUV/big car explosion as being a result of car-seats, but it is, partially. If you have to load 4 kids into a car, and they can’t ride in the front seat, you have to have a big car.
I’m totally convinced that the laws have gone to far in some states (like mine). I’m not sure about the “public service announcements.” In general, I’m in favor of people having the information — if car seats are really safer, if boosters should be used until kids are 8, in order to minimize risk, that’s information worth knowing. But, the fear-mongering is problematic, not the least, when it makes people feel bad about choices they cannot avoid making.
bj
February 27th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Heck, in my town the school buses for K-12 schools don’t have seat belts.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
And I suppose those harness buckles never ever fail, either. They are just seatbelts of a different ilk. My three-year-old is in a five-point harness (at 32 lbs.) so I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’m not deluded into thinking that nothing can go wrong with his seat and that he’s magically protected now.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
elizabeth, i really like your point about not letting your parenting choices be ruled primarily by fear. yes, a seat belt can fail. it also happens incredibly rarely. planning for the incredibly rare, but possible event, becomes unpracticable at some point.
good for you for not getting sucked into the emotional blackmail that the YouTube video (it sounds like) engages in.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
I’d glad you wrote this, and I agree with you. I think this is just a small example of how we allow fear to distract us from much more powerful, meaningful intentions. It’s pervasive, and our country has fallen victim to it… not just parents.
And a side note on the topic of carseats… it’s always been a pet peeve of mine. I know hundreds of parents who wouldn’t dare put their child in a used or less expensive carseat, and even a few who wouldn’t even install a carseat themselves (relying on the fire department volunteers). Yet half or more of these parents do not buckle the child in adequately, or leave the handle up on an infant carrier.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
i don’t have the stats, but school buses have an incredibly high safety rate. like the person who quoted the stats above in her personal calculation, the amt of expense would be high vs the gain. course, as a 7th grade teacher, one of the professions i would NEVER attempt is bus driver.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I think it’s important to remember that what the YouTube video described was a seat belt FAILURE. The child wasn’t improperly restrained (he was in a booster seat, as the guidelines advise); the seat belt malfunctioned. While the parents may blame themselves for not placing the child in a car seat, it was the failure of the seatbelt that caused the fatality. All of us who drive and weigh more than 40 pounds (a category which I assume includes most of the readers of this blog) rely on seat belts to keep us safe when we drive. A seat belt failure would be a tragedy no matter who was sitting in the seat.
I don’t think Elizabeth is advocating that we ignore expert advice on car seats — she’s saying that one family’s experience of seat belt failure is not necessarily a reason for all of the rest of us to change what we do when we drive our kids around. It would make more sense for us all to advocate studying and addressing the causes of seat belt failures than it would for us all to strap our kids into five-point harnesses until they’re 75 pounds.
As the other bj points out, school buses have a high safety rate. We have a friend whose child was killed in a bus accident. By the reasoning implied by the YouTube video, our proper response should be to never allow our children to ride the bus.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Phantom points out one of the problems that occur when doing risk analysis; seatbelt failures are very rare, but as merseydotes points out, car accidents are fairly common. We tend to conflate the risks, and hope that by taking the action to protect us against the rare risk, we can protect ourselves from the more common risk.
For example, childhood diseases like leukemia are not “rare”, though also not common. But, what is extremely rare is that your particular child would get a relatively rare disease, and then that the cord blood would be the difference between death and survival.
People selling the risk-fix rely on your fear of the more common risk (and the enormous consequence of not protecting against it), to sell you a fix that would only help in the rare instance.
bj
March 1st, 2007 at 11:50 am
A U.S. Senate subcommittee held a hearing just yesterday (maybe they heard us talking?) on vehicle safety for children. The testimony is publicly available at
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=1828
Public Citizen is advocating built-in child restraints with a five-point harness. If safety seats with 65-pound weight limits were automatically built into every car, would it still be seen as parenting by fear to use them on a five- or six-year-old? The cost issue goes away, as does the ‘hassle’ perception of installation/moving the seat back and forth.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:32 am
I do not advocate forgoing car seats. I believe that every little bit helps…even if installed incorrectly. I think that what it comes down to is parental awareness of the efficacy of car seats.
Just because your child is in a car seat, doesn’t mean he or she is ultimately safe. Which sort of circles around to….put down your cell phone, don’t take that extra drink and drive slower. Unfortunately, it is somewhat impossible to stop turning around and peering into the back seat to see why there is hysterical crying emanating from one of those seated there 🙂