Steven Levitt on child carseats

[@veessayin2878]

To all those who think this guy's an idiot: people will almost never divorce themselves of closely held dogma even when proven wrong.

[@viewsthoughtsidea]

Vee's Sayin It has a lot to do with the backwards world of economics

[@mc4ndr3]

Start with the explicit agreement that everyone wants to protect kids from harm, and remember that the exact details are negotiable, surprising, and a balance between imperfect safety and imperfect funds.

[@karagi101]

What I got out of this presentation is that a valid question has been raised as to the effectiveness of child car seats. There needs to be a thorough, unbiased investigation to either validate or disprove his hypothesis.

[@rogerheathcote3062]

Try getting that trial through the ethics committee!

[@karagi101]

Roger Heathcote No need for ethics committee involvement. They’d use dummies with sensors when crash testing.

[@davidsmith553]

Funded by the carseat manufacturers of course.

[@karagi101]

David Smith Paid by the manufacturers but conducted by an independent testing agency (hopefully).

[@pacochihuahua77]

This video is from 2005. So so so many studies and changes have been made since then.

[@ChileanPepper_]

"Under the conditions of anonymity...so we went to Buffalo NY"

[@jaimesaenz221]

Calspan crash test laboratory. Oops.

[@544CampStreet]

@@jaimesaenz221 Yeah. It even has the name in the background of the test footage.

[@hitchensghost]

thanks for the laugh.

[@JGooden762]

Why does a video from 2008 look like it was filmed in 1986?

[@icecreaminc8013]

10 - 15 yrs from now ....we will be saying 'why does the picture look so horrible" to stuff recorded today.

[@carlosmatos9848]

Because it was filmed with a potato

[@ashchaya7676]

Be quiet and help me change reels.

[@bennemann]

Because KZbin was in its infancy and videos had a maximum resolution of 240p, likely to more efficiently utilize their limited storage space back then (as it hadn't been bought by Google yet). This is a problem for all pre-2009-or-so videos (or so I've noticed). You can see this for yourself in the quality selector.

[@aaronrobinson2121]

I think the answer lies in XKCD: 771

[@x--.]

Great Video. Could use a 10+ years later update. Also, he says no one above 6 uses a car seat the California law is till 8yrs old. In any case, it seems like car seat manufacturers are getting a great subsidy regardless of results: lives saved, injuries reduced.

[@JohnRunyon]

Heck, hospitals have gone in with the manufacturers and won't let you go take your baby home if your car seat is over 6 years old. Even if it's from one of the few manufacturers who doesn't put a (completely BS) expiration date on it.

[@GodotWorld]

Canada here. My kid has to be in a car/booster seat, by law, until she meets two of three requirements (age, height, weight). What's kind of ridiculous is there are some adult women that don't meet the height and weight conditions. I agree with the car seats for infants to two years old, but we've kind of gone off the deep end. Kids are in car seats practically until they're teens now. It's, IMHO, a major scam for car seat manufacturers.

[@pacochihuahua77]

This was 2005. You can see so many things that went wrong in the seat belt and now we have something that was unheard of back then, extended rear facing. That's a whole other realm that's not even in this guy's mind. It's true that for children who are big enough and mature enough there is no safety difference between FF harness and seat belt. Booster seats are necessary.

[@genli5603]

10+ years later, and since these rules began being rolled out, children's deaths have fallen to about HALF what they were, while total deaths are down only about 12%.

[@rondowar]

In the Netherlands we usually just use a sort of very large cushion to sit on, just to raise the child a bit higher, to get some more effectiveness out of the adult seat belts

[@audex]

rondowar yup in chile we do as well, also volvos have seat boosters stock

[@fionafiona1146]

In Germany that's only legal starting age 14 or for children over 1,50m.

[@cloaknhood]

@@jasonfaulkner8644 lol u stupid

[@shiitakestick]

Angus Hood - you need your diaper changed

[@zappawench6048]

Your motorists only have to dodge cyclists so there is not much danger!

[@von5274]

To everyone calling Levitt an idiot in the comments: Steven David "Steve" Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is an American economist known for his work in the field of crime, in particular on the link between legalized abortion and crime rates. Winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal, he is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He was co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press until December 2007. He co-authored the best-selling book Freakonomics (2005) and its sequels SuperFreakonomics (2009) and Think Like a Freak (2014). He is a grand-nephew of Robert L. May, the lyricist of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer[citation needed]. In 2009, Levitt co-founded TGG Group, a business band philanthropy consulting company.[1] He was chosen as one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006. (Wikipedia) I'd like to see your credentials.

[@williamtfinnegan1359]

+Von Being your field is the economics of crime and abortion, your conclusions are off the reservation. You really need an expert in biomechanics to discuss head, neck, and spinal injury in car seats. Your data requiring one adult fatality before you count the infant mortality is a bias in your analysis. Your talk centers on age, but really height and weight of the child are key factors.

[@hamishcameron9510]

fucking snob

[@andyjw26]

Those credentials are not relevant to the field. They simply give him an overblown sense of his own intellect.

[@jouneymanwizard]

+William His conclusions are that there is no statistical difference between two sets of data; units (french fries or fetuses or fatalities) are irrelevant. You should be an expert in biomechanics to discuss individual impacts of particular crashes, but again this has already been done by the doctors who report the injuries and/or fatalities (and the whatever points system used in crash test assessment) - he is just assessing their results. He states his data only counts one or more fatalities reported - it does not require an adult fatality. There is a bias toward under reporting the impacts concerning non-fatality accidents, which is briefly addressed in the Q&A at the end. With a large enough data set, age-based height and weight differences follow the normal human percentiles, so your height/weight concerns are addressed statistically. You are bringing up points that are relevant for individual cases, but lose relevance in a large statistical model.

[@Profit2800]

Von I got your credentials right here🍆

[@111ch1a1d111]

"They wouldn't do the test except under condition of anonymity. Here's some photos of their facility."

[@sourcererseven3858]

AND where they're located

[@andraslibal]

The pictures look generic

[@kostnadseffektiv]

And the company logo...

[@Capu57]

@@andraslibal He called out Buffalo specifically. I can not imagine there is a huge crash test industry in Buffalo. There are 10 in the US but usually when someone says Buffalo the mean Buffalo New York

[@andraslibal]

@@Capu57 uh-oh he should have kept it a better secret.

[@sherilynn1310]

The biggest benefit of carseats for two and ups? As long as the kids can't get out of them, they can't poke each other so easily and distract the driver. "Mommmmmmm she's TOUCHING me again...!"

[@tendrams]

100%

[@curmudgeon1933]

In the ten years since this video there have been huge advances in airbag technology. It's possible that minor injuries have been significantly reduced with both belts and seats, but it is also true that car seats have become obscenely expensive and profitable, and the culture of 'health and safety' has become so pervasive, that any attempt to question the current paradigm would probably be shut down very quickly.

[@whoaminow100]

on his little story at the end i was thinking maybe colds just don't last 3 weeks

[@artiet5982]

This guy is most definitely more intelligent in every way then any person (including myself) leaving comments on YT. just so ridiculous reading some of these parents comments. They aren’t able to even consider a new point of view as being true, accurate, or perhaps superior to the school of thought they have bought in to. In their defense most people defending car seats were brought up in the age of car seats and see it as the absolute and most safe way. Being afraid of change and the possibility of being wrong to the point where you stick your heals in the ground and pushback on anyone else’s point of view defines the idea of being ignorant.

[@artiet5982]

Also, I realize I’m late to the comment game. But Steven is doing great work.

[@eyeout]

Art T. Suck it.

[@erictaylor5462]

17:00 That or the mystery illness finally killed them.

[@franciscomoutinho1]

After 3 weeks you either get cured on your own, find another doctor or die. Simple ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@queenofshred]

Or the mystery illness incapacitated them so much that it was impossible for them to travel to see a doctor again, or even to contact the doctor to say that they were still ill. Sadly, this happens a lot #MillionsMissing

[@ReturntoReason]

Glad I checked first before posting this exact thing

[@heinekenswordfish]

Yeah, if the placebos eliminated their pain or discomfort, you would think at least SOME would come back for refills, not simply go away forever. I would guess that the vast majority of people who didn't come back (after 1st, 2nd, or 3rd visit) had either a) found a different doctor, b) gave up all together and just said, "doctors are useless" (I have definitely done both of those things when I wasn't satisfied with a doctor visit).

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

Maybe kids in cars should have to wear protective helmets until their skull has reached adult hardness. I think that happens at 18. This could be a real score for helmet sellers and their corporate shareholders considering the average kid would go through at least 6 helmets in 18 years. If they can secretly shorten the time it takes for plastic to fatigue, maybe more than 6. (Sarcasm alert.)

[@4NeonFun]

Oh and plus a full set of body gear! It never ends 😎

[@zlamanit]

I don't see why adults shouldn't be protected with special car seats.

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

Its only a matter of time before they outlaw kids in non-crash-worthy bike seats on the back of bikes. Especially the new electric ones. Basically its a child on the back of a motorcycle. When i was a kid we rode in the back of the truck on the way to and from the beach. Standing up on the open highway was a good way to dry clothes/hair.

[@mondvogel6124]

looks like these old carseats didnt have isofix. also, test seats were not rearmounted. feels like this needs an update

[@hatlicks18]

3 year olds don't use rear mounted car seats...

[@briannejohnson1128]

I wonder about rear-facing carseats too! Rear-facing carseats are made to accommodate 3 year olds now and the recommendation nowadays is to max out the weight capacity for rear-facing.

[@1RadicalOne]

One problem with the videotaped crashes - the dummy in the belt appears to have a much more sudden stop. That is worse than a more gradual one in a high-acceleration situation such as this; it creates a plethora of internal injuries.

[@KLP99]

1RadicalOne No. The crash was 30mph. That's a relatively common speed and is very much a valid level to study. Plus, the car seat caused the child to violently impact his knees with his head. It also resulted in more violent head movements overall. There is more likely to be head and neck injuries in the car seat. Higher speeds increase that risk exponentially. Here's a myth: 2 cars traveling at 50mph head-on into each other. The combined impact ratio is: 1 - 100mph 2 - 50mph The correct answer is, "50mph". Look it up. Mythbusters did an episode about it.

[@joet8218]

He might be referring to the effect where a more sudden stop increases the forces experienced by the body. This is demonstrated by the formula force x time = mass x change in velocity or Ft=mdv. Essentially, the longer it takes for the child to slow to a stop, the less force the child's body undergoes. This is why cars are designed to crumple at the front and deploy airbags.

[@dcan911]

@@KLP99 that's not the full story. The Mythbusters result was two cars going 50 (closing speed 100) perform like a car going 50 into a solid wall. A more useful control wouldn't have been a crash into a solid wall, but a crash from 50 into another stationary car.

[@KLP99]

@@dcan911 No, a stationary car would significantly decrease the effect of impact. And 2 cars also "give" in some areas, similarly to the stationary car. The reason the impact of 2 cars hitting each other traveling at 50mph is only 50mph is because the impact stops each car's momentum. That momentum equals 50mph to zero, not 50mph to -50mph.

[@kokopelli314]

Its hard to change the beliefs of someone whose income is supported by those beliefs. Steve Levitt made it quite clear that child car seats were an effective, but complicated and expensive solution for all children but not necessarily the best solution for the older age group. The point being made here is the divide between research and reason when irrational assumptions, fear and greed determine public policy.

[@Rob-fx2dw]

Excellent talk. A phenomenon known as convergence in examining the crashes and drawing conclusions may have lead to the situation of more expensive child car seats instead of taking the wider view.

[@truthsmiles]

So I'll just show this video to the judge when I'm trying to fight my $250 ticket for not having my 6 year old in a car seat.

[@misterbear9211]

+truthsmiles That's too bad. I've been having my 6yo in a lap belt in the middle seat of my truck since she was 4. I've never gotten a ticket or pulled over.

[@moladiver6817]

I'd gladly pay all the fines if I was convinced defying a law would actually enhance my kid's safety. And it seems there is sufficient data to support this case so yeah bring all data to court. And this video too. Trials can be a very effective way for civilians to change laws.

[@truthsmiles]

@@moladiver6817 Except the data (to me, anyway) doesn't seem to suggest not using car seats ENHANCES safety - it just doesn't reduce it. *sorry for all the triple negative - I tried but failed to re-write :-)

[@ericanderson4801]

14 years later: "Your kid isn't in a car seat? YOU MONSTER!"

[@liquidrageCN]

Guys. I found the one from the future. This dudes from 2022!!!

[@bennernotes]

Yeah, I was shocked to recently learn how long kids stay in carseats today. I was like I was out of one at 3-4. Now I'm pretty sure people are supposed to keep their kids in carseats until they're either 24 years old or 6'2".

[@garyha2650]

The path to 100% safety ends in 0% freedom

[@klurejr]

Can anyone point me to a more recent video from Steven on this subject? 2008 is 10 years ago, I would be very interested to see if the data sets have changed in the last 10 years to add any new insight into this.

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

Great question. However, if I was a profit-motivated boss in the profitable carseat selling business, I would use my profits to maintain my business. I.e., I would pay Levitt to shut up, or, pay him to come work for me under NDA agreement.

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

Also, lets be honest, car seats might actually be worth the money nowadays. They have had years and years to get it right and justify the cost. But always remember ... car seat companies don't actually care about your child. They care about legal safety, and they care about maintaining profits forever, or as long as possible.

[@munchingfoo]

I would be particular interested in the same study conducted with ISOfix car seats, the connectors for which are now law in the EU on new cars.

[@bojankotur4613]

@@munchingfoo they may be law but you are not obliged to use an isofix seat despite having the isofix anchor points. By the way, wikipedia says this about isofix: "The full set of anchor points for this system were required in new cars in the United States starting in September 2002."

[@uum6]

Perhaps having more motion during a crash is beneficial for the child. The forces of stopping rapidly are dampened rather than suddenly unleashed in one hit.

[@22Harponyo]

Very informative talk and i would love to see an updated review of this issue

[@donrobertson4940]

I used to joke that NASA had stopped making seats for astronauts and were using child seats instead. Some are so over the top - but you get them for a one year old, you might as well keep using it untill they are old enough for adult belts. They do reduce injury, mainly by stopping fights in the back seat and over who sits in the front, where they'll get killed by the air bag.

[@TheGbelcher]

I wonder if he gave away the identity of the crash test vendor by saying Buffalo, NY. I can’t imagine there are many of these.

[@jackpine8547]

CALSPAN. Formerly Cornell Aeronautical Testing Institute. Genese St Buffalo, NY.

[@technusking]

I'll take "Least likely things for KZbin commenters to understand" for 400, Alex

[@mikewoodson9254]

Michael W hey I’m Michael w too!!!

[@DrZbo]

@@mikewoodson9254 lol

[@avebrian]

The difference between disbelief of a proposition, and belief in the opposing proposition.

[@MCWormGuy]

would love to see an update on this

[@alsairafi91]

14 years later and car seats are even more complex and more expensive.

[@JohnRunyon]

And useless and only "good" for one kid.

[@ab935]

My dog could have lost his leg due to the best dog car harness. Amazon hid my review.

[@Mr_ToR]

Fuckers

[@KurtRichterCISSP]

Seatbelts have injured certain people but the numbers show they save many times more lives than they take. Your anecdote is regrettable but doesn't disprove the statistics.

[@ab935]

@@KurtRichterCISSP don't confuse harnesses made for dogs with seatbelts. The standards for safety for pet products are lax. This particular product had MANY reviews stating the dog got tangled. My review had pictures.

[@gaillewis5472]

It's Steven the Freakonomics guy!

[@Therealalbot]

I am a bit sad that 11 years after this we still don't see better solutions.

[@Philitron128]

The best solution is to avoid this whole situation by not having kids haja

[@aaronchacon400]

What about countries like Sweden where children remain rear facing until 4 and they have much lower rates of children dying in car accidents. Perhaps the distribution of force during an accident plays some role on why our rates in the US for this are so high

[@carolynbrightfield8911]

I'd like to see data collected on catastrophic injuries - there are some things worse than actual death: living death for both child and parents

[@catfishman1768]

Why would you assume the seat belt to be the same effectiveness as a car seat in mortality but very different in serious injury?

[@peteranon8455]

I'm against all government preventative law for private citizens. Honestly, if you want to buy a child seat, I'm okay with it. Having a man with a gun take money from me because I don't buy a mandatory product is strong arm robbery.

[@bigtimepimpin666]

My.mom put us in car seats without the man threatening her. I wore my seat belt regardless that there were no laws making me do it. It is pathetic people are too fucking stupid to do what is in their best interest. And of course regardless if legal or not I have never used drugs..

[@leonng9926]

Thanks Steven. Learn new things everyday.

[@kbennettedwards]

My 14yr old Dodge Caravan has the integrated car seats very similar to his graphic and they work great. Wonder why he doesn't seem to know they are already out there?

[@MichaelSchwagerPlace]

He drives a Toyota.

[@MrJustsayinshit]

He was obviously being facetious considering the fact he showed a picture of an integrated seat in his presentation... I'm surprised that in 7 years no one has told you that your sarcasm detector is broken.

[@NeverWoken]

@@MichaelSchwagerPlace integrated child seats are an option on most family sized toyotas in Japan.

[@Karkenou]

Yes, and the laws stating that a child should use a booster seat until eight years old are stupid. I'll probably stop using a car seat with my child when he is five or six. But eight years old is ridiculous, they're smart enough to know what they're doing by that age.

[@fionafiona1146]

It's not about age it's about shoulder hight and strangulation if it isn't sufficient.

[@MichaelSchwagerPlace]

@@fionafiona1146 It seems that the data on lap/shoulder belt use vs. car seats doesn't back up your theory. Lap/shoulder belts are roughly equivalent to car seats, above the age of 2, according to what I see in this video.

[@hitchensghost]

@@MichaelSchwagerPlace fiona was talking about comfort.

[@teresadalessio1]

There's one issue with this in that the first set of data points with percentages showed that the car seats performed better in this test when variables were analyzed the car seat only work better in front on collisions which is clearly indicative of their being far more fun and crashes than anything else that kill children so if you tail around the biggest probability of Crash being front-end Collision then the car seat is more effective. Had the probability of having a rear end collision or Side Collision been equally as likely as a head-on collision then the seatbelt would definitely be equivalent but clearly head-on collisions are the most probable

[@paulspydar]

I find car seats very hard to get on with, I just don't fit in them, so I am gonna buy myself as new one next year on my 40th..:-)

[@sleepypoodle]

His father would be struck off the register these days for handing out placebo drugs without informing the patients that they were participating in an experiment, that's outrageous. These poor people were probably genuinely unwell but their body's natural healing just took care of things. Just because there's no cure for a cold doesn't negate the fact that it's a genuine illness, therefore if someone recovers from their disease without intervention doesn't mean they weren't ill to begin with.

[@as-369]

My first kid was born 4 weeks ago and youtube decides to recommend this to me. Not sure if I should feel grace or fear.

[@RiffRaffMama.]

I feel you. I have three kids. Like he said, car seat testing data is generally taken from one type of accident - front-on. I had just turned 21 and was driving with my toddler first-born safely attached to his baby seat in the back of my car when another car drove into the side of mine. It hit me so hard my car was bent in half. My son was sitting on the side that was hit. We both walked away. But not by the grace of the baby seat, by incredibly good fortune and good car manufacturing practices. Had the other car hit me just a foot further back from where it did, my son would almost certainly have sustained very serious, likely fatal injuries. The car seat would have done very little. In this situation I am confident it minimised injury (soft tissue damage). I don't tell this story to scare you, but to illustrate that *all you can do is the best you can do*. The Universe will call the shots any way it seems fit, but simply having the baby seat there is still seen as best practice, especially when you consider the age of this video and the advancements in technology in that time. Best wishes to you and your new family.

[@paddotk]

Better to see this now than after a potential crash in the future. If it''s the suggestion itself that worries you, it's because you googled child-related search queries before and KZbin (owned by Google) uses that data to make personalized suggestions and ads.

[@paddotk]

@@RiffRaffMama. Out of curiosity, do you feel that (if the car hit yours a little more to the back) the car's seatbelt would have been safer? Since you say your son was a toddler at the time, it seems to me a regular seatbelt would not have sufficed like this presenter states.

[@maxime05c]

YT knew it by reading your FB so it's in your area of interest, possibly. Do not underestimate the power of the algorithm. In all seriousness, seat belt. When he's big enough...in this video, the dummy look like a 7 yo. Who put a kid that old in a baby seat.

[@stephenpowstinger733]

I suggested this very stat of affairs to my Facebook group. One woman was incensed, “you’ve got to be kidding.” she said when I said the child car seat law was deeply flawed. The backseat placed is just wrong but people will get upset at that thought.

[@popskull42]

Yes, car seats are often installed incorrectly. BUT, standard seat belts can be done wrong, and even altered into an incorrect position by the kid during the ride. I feel like the ideal study would be to yolk crash test conditions to families doing real world driving. Set up the car seat the same way. Set up the standard seat belt the same way. Adjust when adjustments are made mid-ride. I think this might be possible if you have pre-recorded real life rides and then mimic them in the crash lab. Then have the crash occur at random (the person setting the time would be blind to the conditions present at that time). See which averages out to the better score over thousands of trials and you'll know which works better in the real world.

[@Zt3v3]

Now it's freaking 8 years for car seats! (in CA at least).

[@keepingitreel...8037]

Many of these, "Safety" product companies conduct their tests and hire lobbyists to go to Washington DC to sell these products in terms of new laws requiring their use. That's where the real money is. . . Imagine you developed a product that makes your windshield absolutely unbreakable. So you research how many deaths and severe injuries caused to drivers and passengers by either going through the windshield, or another projectile that entered the vehicle through the windshield from the outside. Then you make a video and play it for Congress during your testimony and repeat the words, "safety" and "children's lives" and "medical cost savings" etc. If necessary you could donate to a few campaigns, "on both sides of the isle." Because once you get a safety product on the market, and "Mandated by Congress" you will become extremely wealthy. Even if it isn't really needed, or isn't any better. . .

[@keepingitreel...8037]

By the way, when I was a kid, we rode our bicycles everywhere! There was no such thing as bike helmets. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 900 people, including 200 children are killed annually in bicycle related incidents and about 60% (540) of these deaths involve head injuries. Here's a quote from the, Global Bike Helmet Market: "Bike Helmets can help absorb impacts and save their life." Now it is a Billion dollar industry. If the industry can get them mandated by law, the product will really take off. (There are local laws in some places, but the key is Nationally, and Globally. . .

[@dangleason9023]

12:57 "takes much longer to rebound..." He says this like its a bad thing. Heard of anything called impulse? Rate of acceleration? The longer the time of rebound the less strain put on the passenger. This is why airbags exist, the airbag exerts a smaller force on your face for a LONGER period of time vs the steering wheel stopping your face insanely quickly.

[@emilchandran546]

Dan Gleason you’re forgetting that impulse isn’t the whole equation. I think what he was actually trying to say was the rebound was delayed. “Took longer to rebound” as in the kid continued to fly forwards for longer before the restraints kicked in. Now this may not matter, after all its the deceleration that can kill right? So if the seat lowers the impulse then this would make sense that a slower acceleration would take more time. But lower impulse at the expense of the kids head moving so far forward that it could collide with its knees would obviously not be worth it. In motor racing pilots / drivers wear HANS devices. The essentially limit neck articulation and head movement. These will not help to reduce impulse. But they do help prevent neck snapping. This isn’t motor racing but I think the point is that there is a balance between restraint and lowering impulse. I’m not an expert. Still I think what he was saying was that the child in the seat was flung around for a bit “longer” before the seat began to restrain it, potentially causing harm. While the seat belt takes less time to achieve similar performance (so perhaps impulse is similar anyway).

[@dangleason9023]

@@emilchandran546 I agree with you on the head flying into the knees. Would have saved Dale Earnhardt with the Hans device. I appreciate your reply.

[@BeAPickle]

That ad in the end is great

[@yurikolovsky]

If a doctor gave me 3 pills all or which didn't work, I wouldn't come back to the doctor either, because I would think that the doctor obviously does not know what he is doing.

[@hitchensghost]

i loved the analogy, but he drew the wrong conclusion from it. He should have started at the smallest, to next smallest, because he was ridiculing his own second medicine. "Can't you see I'm mocking you???"

[@FrederickGrumieaux]

I suppose you are also not a hypochondriac?

[@elisabethb.131]

I spent a lot of time in a normal seat belt as a child, and I remember hating it because of the shoulder strap chafing the side of my throat.

[@rjamsbury1]

12:02 'Hardly moved at all' effectively means that none of the impact is being absorbed by the system and more damage to the kid. It's the same principle with crumple zones - you want the parts to decelerate not halt. And I wonder how many of your dad's patients went away and got worse??

[@justinlouie8355]

There's a principle being applied from one area to another that it doesn't carry over well. You're correct in needing a crumple zone to absorb the energy, but once you're at the person/thing you're trying to protect, this is far from ideal. The best example I can give is surviving elevator crashes. Ideally you're laying on the floor at the moment of impact, hardly any movement. www.quora.com/Is-it-physically-possible-to-survive-a-free-falling-elevator-I-read-somewhere-that-you-can-lay-on-the-floor-with-your-body-in-the-center-How-about-jumping-just-before-its-about-to-hit-the-ground The true goal is to either distribute the force via area, not time. Time here require elasticity and elasticity means movement. Movement means uncontrolled forces. This is what he's talking about here. Movement allows your body to get into a different position and it's possible to jam a bunch of force into an arm or back or neck in an uncontrolled manner. Distributing the force via area w/ controlled movements results in controlled outcomes. Fatter seat belts maybe with small amounts of elasticity built in. The idealized form of this is demolition man's securefoam... or something like it.

[@rjamsbury1]

@@justinlouie8355 I stand corrected - thank you. I still not sure I buy into the conspiracy theory or conclusion that it's just as safe without car seats. Manufacturers obviously have vested interest but so do parents and government in kids' safety. This guy ran one series of tests without external scrutiny compared to decades of well observed results.

[@BruceHurley]

@@rjamsbury1: He actually based his entire talk on those decades of well-observed results. The test was just to seek an explanation for the inescapable conclusion of the data.

[@ngkktht774]

When tested again by scientists in 2015, they found that "Compared with seat belts, child restraints, when not seriously misused (eg, unattached restraint, child restraint system harness not used, 2 children restrained with 1 seat belt) were associated with a 28% reduction in risk for death (relative risk, 0.72; 95% confidence interval, 0.54-0.97) in children aged 2 through 6 years after adjusting for seating position, vehicle type, model year, driver and passenger ages, and driver survival status. When including cases of serious misuse, the effectiveness estimate was slightly lower (21%) (relative risk, 0.79; 95% confidence interval, 0.59-1.05)."

[@rradioactiv]

this info would be useful if the big brother didn't have his thumb on ya. get pulled over without car seat get a ticket and cps called.

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

You can chalk it up to lobbyists bribing and/or fearmongering politicians into changing laws to increase profits for carseat company shareholders. They do it for oil, they do it for guns, they do it for sugar, they do it for mining ... why not do it for carseats too.

[@izzimichaels2892]

@kcotte59 lol, i may be a bit older than you, but i recall on cold days curling up on the front seat floor to get the full effect of the heater. some cars didnt even have seat belts at the time

[@LoneCloudHopper]

One point which might not sound very scientific but is an important point is that, statistically, people are less likely to be injured in a crash if they are calm rather than not. The cross-shoulder seat-belt restrains the passenger more, as is clear in the crash test dummy demonstration, making one's body and thus mind (as the two are connected) less loose and comfortable. Loose and comfortable, statistically, means you're more apt to make it through unharmed. This may be due to split-second instinctive reactions which the sub-conscious performs, or due to strain which the body puts on itself in resisting a sudden, strong thrust of a crash.

[@wallythompson394]

Our kids were young before car seats existed but we found and added a heavy belt strap across the back seat with attachments for two chest harnesses they wore. They could sit or stand and look around. To go into the store, detach and add a doggie leash so they did not run free in the store. It worked well, however it was not for infants and we never had a serious accident to test that function. If there were a choice, I would prefer that from about age two until a regular lap and shoulder strap became OK.

[@4NeonFun]

Rear facing seats are the best for infants, past that depending on size and weight of the child, a simple booster seat or similar to raise the child to fit in the seat belt. The harness idea is a good idea especially for unruly kids. Ideally, we would never have to test that function. Driving safely is always your best option.

[@techguy651]

The laws regarding use of car seats can never be repealed or loosened because they are used to criminalize poverty (especially minority poverty) and milk a silent population for revenue outside the regular tax system. This is why these feel-good safety laws are so horrible to society. Easy to pass, hard to revoke, and hurts the underprivileged the most (in the guise of helping them).

[@HiBye-yt2xb]

Late 90s dodge stratus has integrated car seat 4 point restraint harness as well.

[@PAVANZYL]

The main advantage for me was that the children could not get out of a car seat, they could easily slip out of seat belts - and that could even cause the accident.

[@sourcererseven3858]

Exactly my thought. The dummies sit still, a child never will. Slip out of the shoulder strap, lean over to lay on the side, etc.

[@djc6394]

This is from 2005. Integrated car seats have been used in minivans since then. I would be curious to know whether it made a difference. The one major advantage of the integrated seat is that it cannot be installed improperly by the adult. I imagine the integrated seats were not used often though because parents already had their car seats by the time they got these cars and the integrated seats were only boosters intended for larger children. Also, the car seat lobby and marketing convinced parents that integrated seats were not as safe. I don't see advertising for integrated seats anymore so I suspect that they aren't made. Now the push is to keep kids facing rearward longer. There are problems with that idea, too. The chief one being that the kids hate it and it makes everyone in the car miserable when the car seat kid is crying the whole time. It may be safer, but it is hardly practical.

[@ricko1111]

He was being facetious - that was a real picture of a real seat - he is suggesting that they should become integrated into every car as a matter of course if only people listened to the data.

[@BrianDickert]

He mentions in this book that kids watching videos in the backseat were the "safest" since they were mesmerized and glued to the seat.

[@crudhousefull]

He killed himself in the end lol. No parent will take a 10% chance that their kid would get injured over saving money on a carseat if they can afford it

[@christopherswanson3317]

Lap only belts are in the middle of the back seat (safer with side impact crashes), so not a good comparison. And he mentions “movement” in the crash tests as if it’s intrinsically bad. Is it? Might some movement reduce the g forces involved? Just wondering. He mentions “cost effectiveness,” and it almost seems that he means “car seats might be slightly safer overall, but the difference isn’t worth $160 for a car seat.” If that is in fact what he’s saying, I couldn’t disagree more. I’ll happily pay $160 for even a 1% safety increase. Either way, I encourage open mindedness and innovation in this area.

[@azzir325]

There WAS a car manufacturer who integrated a child seat into the regular seats in their vans. I believe they were available in Chrysler products like the Caravan and Voyager. The center of the seat back folded down for the child to sit on, and the child was snuggled into the space it had occupied and held nicely in place by the seat belts. But I guess that arrangement made the car seat mongers angry...

[@slavomirgrigorov5197]

It seems this guy does not know much about physics. He explains how bad it is in the child car seat, because there is a lot of movements during the impact, and that rebound is delayed for child seat compared to seat belt (13:30). Faster rebound means that the same amount of energy was applied in less time, which means much higher force is applied to the body of the dummy that is with standard seat belt. From Newton's law: [Force = mass * deceleration] this means [Force = mass * (velocity change / time of that change)] Mass of the dummy and the velocity change (from 30 mph to 0 mph) are the same. So, for example decreasing the time of the impact forces to half means that the impact forces are increased twice. In my opinion the child with seat belt would break its neck. By the way much safer is rear facing child seat. Also when you compare only statistics there are much more factors that you cannot neglect. Also rear impact is much less frequent than the frontal. Therefore comparing them just as a percentage of fatal injuries is not correct. However, ... drive safe.

[@cruzc09]

@Febeleh we bow to you. you are so much more cognitively and morally superior than the rest of society. im not only offended for myself, but everyone else who has to read someone's comment's who has no regard for other people's thoughts or feelings. i'm sorry if you think that anyone who doesnt think like you is clearly not rational. pleave have some respect and dignity. incredibly inappropriate.

[@lahabitaciondelatrapado4621]

Guys just remember this video is from 2008, therefore old seats were used I really doubt this is real for todays carseats, specially since he talks about difficulties setting them up Nowadays isofix is standarised, easy to use and virtually every car has it (at least here in the EU)

[@mutzimieow486]

hahaha, funny comments, but he only pointed the fact that things for free are considered worthless - that is a common rule how the human brain works

[@morganssongs8834]

I don't know how to use any of this info, though, since it's currently illegal to NOT have my kids in a carseat. There is one valid "mom" point running through the comments, too: if your child can't be trusted to NOT remove their seatbelt while in transit, they DO need a harder-to-operate alternative like a car seat.

[@portland-182]

or after 3 weeks of placebos, the patient died due to lack of treatment

[@atlas5651]

I agree with this guy. I'm so sick of the parnaoid parents bullying other parents because of their opinion on carseats! Why don't car companies make safer cars. I drive a 2007 Buick enclave and I can't see a damn thing when I look over my shoulder.. but when I drive my 1959 Edsel, I feel safer and can see a 360 view. It's like the "safer" the car, the more dangerous it actually is.

[@cobhcdr]

get a Tesla

[@rjamsbury1]

Yeah but your 2007 car would drive straight through the 59 8f they met head on. Visibility is just one criteria

[@superdingo9741]

@@cobhcdr Instead of becoming a parent?

[@Jjb-gk4ce]

Robert Amsbury the 2007 one is meant to crumple, the 1959 one is made of metal. I think the 1959 one would be the one going right through.

[@rjamsbury1]

@@Jjb-gk4ce Watch what happens when they've tried it. The 50s car would have no survivors kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIGpZZl4fLN-Zrc

[@supertramp1982]

The fact that he only looks at fatal crashes makes him miss out on all the crashes where a child didn't die and was in a car seat. I'm not convinced..

[@100pcRenewables]

Fascinating. I know we need emotion and perhaps in some ways it's severely lacking but emotion has a lot to answer for in regard to important decisions being made.

[@youmakeitwhatitis]

Emotion is the original drive to protect the child. Logic and reason are supposed to satisfy the emotion via the best route for protecting the child. Unfortunately, the masses often use emotion in place of most of their reasoning, and stay in low-thought mode (I've forgotten the real term for this), seeing more money spent and more measures taken as always better. Additionally, many people just excessively trust that laws are all made using the scientific method. Whether or not that's an emotion-based problem is up for debate, as far as I'm concerned.

[@jacobrose4805]

All these parents who spend money on these car seats are getting triggered.

[@grantl1569]

What trigger me is the fact that state laws force parents to spend money on car seats. And, to add insult to injury, to buy a booster seat once the child grows out of the car seat. But hey, it's for the children...

[@queenofshred]

What triggers me is the amount of plastic waste when the child car seat reaches the end of its life, which is only about 6 years, due to plastic fatigue and changes in laws regarding the reqirements that the seats have to meet.

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

Triggered, yes, temporarily ... but you won't hear many of them commenting on this message board in opposition of Levitt. Most of them are too used to winning this argument face-to-face, with emotion, so they want nothing to do with a thoughtful text discussion on the matter suggesting they are wrong. (Thankyou Internet!) Second, no one wants to admit to themselves or the world that they helped peer-pressure other parents into believing the carseat industry's fearmongering on behalf of shareholder profits. That would cause a pain in the brain. Sadly, few people enjoy the growing pain of evolving opinion, healthy though it may be. Third, some of them are already hopelessly entrenched due to a never-ending carseat debate with a friend or family member who has read Levitt or others. Those sorts of personal conflicts cause competitive thinkers to double down and dig deeper. And finally, admitting they were half wrong could cause their friends and family to doubt their strong opinions and advice in the future. Nope, can't have that. So instead, they will just think "fake news" and click another video to calm their sense of moral certainty. (Hmm, was I just describing Trump supporters, or car-seat advocates for 8 year olds? Hard to tell. Entrenched, emotionally-motivated thought processes under intellectual siege tend to lash out similarly.)

[@jasonfaulkner8644]

@therainman777 Sorry, but this Trump era has been so different and educational re: human psychology ... we will be referencing his malfeasance, and the (reasons for) gullibility of his supporters for decades, if not longer. Its like referencing Watergate. Or 9-11. More to come. But back to carseats.

[@erictaylor5462]

12:00 In a crash you WANT to take more time to slow down. All that movement is EXACTLY what you want to have happen. So long as it doesn't move so fart it bangs into something, the more movement the better. The thing that hurts and kills you is the acceleration forces (g's) your body experiences in the impact. The reason seat belts save you in a crash is because they prevent you from banging around inside the car. They stretch slightly placing the g load over a longer period of time. Having your body rigidly attached to the body of the car would be as bad as no restraints.

[@grmasdfII]

That last part simply isn't true. You don't want movement in the wrong places, either. Of course we can't all be driving around with a HANS device, which counters the primary reason rigidity in cars is undesirable nowadays, but putting all the energy of a crash into the waist belt like the childrens car seat did is decidedly not what you want.

[@erictaylor5462]

grmasdfII It IS true. Even the HANS devise and the 5 pint harness in races cars stretch. Also look at the damage to the car. When you see a Formula based car (F-1, Indy car. champ car) crash they SHATTER. That is all designed to lessen the acceleration forces ("acceleration" here is used with it's scientific definition) You don't need as much protection in a road car because the speeds are typically much lower (force is increased with the SQUARE of the speed, 2X speed = 4X force) Unrestrained people are hurt when their body (still going the original speed of the car) collides with the inside of the car which has practically stopped. If I put you into a steal restraint bolted to the frame of the car and crashed it you would still be very badly hurt. A lap only belt (2 point harness) isn't as good as a 3 point belt (typical modern car seat belt) but it's still better than nothing. The trick is to slow the body quickly enough to prevent hitting anything inside the car, but not so quickly you cause injuries worse than not being restrained.

[@MindCrime550]

That math is on your side, Eric Taylor. Momentum is mass x velocity. Velocity is a direction and speed. Speed is distance over time. So for this argument: Momentum = mass x (distance/time). If we're in a moving car we have momentum. If we are in a stoped car we have 0 momentum. In a frontal crash we lose our momentum very quickly, and if it's too quickly the mechanical limits of our body tissue fail. If we want to reduce our momentum we can't reduce the mass of our bodies. We can't increase the distance of our bodies from the object in front of us but if we increase the time it takes to travel said distance we will be able to lower our momentum, hopefully to a safe one before impact.

[@grmasdfII]

Eric Taylor And for crashes up to 60mph this works very well - above that it very quickly starts to break down, and we rarely bother testing at higher speeds. Why? Because as far as the human body is concerned, very high acceleration over a very short time is less problematic than medium-high acceleration over a longer time interval. The very same types of cars you mentioned recorded crashes with 160+g, and the highest ever being measured (that was survived) at 214g. And indeed, they shatter to dissipate energy, but they don't crumple. And drivers are secured much more firmly to their cars. Here we are OK with higher acceleration if we can have it for a shorter period of time. There is a reason racing drivers survive crashes you probably wouldn't in a road car, much less unharmed. The HANS device was brought up specifically because basal skull fractures or neck injuries were (probably still are) the most common cause of death in high speed crashes, and in road cars preventing those without a HANS device is the highest priority - we could stand a little more acceleration, our neck is the weak link.

[@bcubed72]

*" A lap only belt (2 point harness) isn't as good as a 3 point belt (typical modern car seat belt) but it's still better than nothing."* Not necessarily, because a 2-point has you fixed at the waist, and your head pivots, so you bounce your head off stuff and potentially snap your neck. In the front seat, perhaps, but in (for instance) a school bus, you're actually *better off* unbelted, and just colliding with the flat back of the seat in front of you, with your WHOLE body, than pivot and crack your forehead off of it. The ONLY accident that a 2-point belt benefits on a school bus is a rollover. Everything else, it increases risk.

[@linjapanese77]

what i love bout this guys is that he doesnt claim to be smart... its all in the data, he always go back to the data and not some brilliant "idea"... i like that.

[@pjesanna]

This is interesting and provocative talk (and having bunch of car seats myself), but you are not buckling your child just to save life but to prevent horrible injuries which are not in his statistics. Saying "very small" difference is not enough. His proposal of simplifying car seats for children sounds good though.

[@LewityDream]

13:00: the fact, that there is much less movement doesn't necessarily means, that is safer. Safety belts cannot hold you in one place, you have to have some space to brake kinetic energy up. Nowadays main function of safety belts is to slow passengers till the airbags are fully blown up. The fact, that in video is child hitting his knees is significantly smaller problem, than braking his neck. Also I didn't see in EU anycars, that can set safety belts to size of child, by manufacturer is minimal height of child, that can use standart safety belts, usualy 130 cm. Also 3-point safety belt contra 2-point safety belt dissipate kinetic energy much better, that is why 2-point belts are not used anymore, because there is smaller strain on spine, neck and internal organs. 13:45: those crashes cannot be used, because there is not enough data about them. For correct result there is need to know, how that crash happened (angle of hit, speeds of all involved vehicles, involvement of another vehicle, what type of another vehicle, direction of travel of another vehicle), and take into consideration passive safety features of involved vehicles (technical specifications - every type of car has differently made deformation zones, diferrent manufacturers of safety features - in some car lines you can have airbags from different suppliers). 18:12: I don't consider 10% as statistically insignificant, in total number it can give over those years quite large number of injuries, which can have large impact on future life of children from health perspective (they can end up with livelong dissabilities), or from economical perspective (parents has to pay medical bills, which can strain them or destroy them financially. I would also mention small scratches and bumps, even if they are not bad as heavy injuries, they can be really annoying for couple of days or weeks.

[@BosonDecay]

the data is from the US highway authority NOT his own research, which ignores whiplash. however we can assume that the whiplash between a car seat or a lap&shoulder belt would be the same (as is tested later). if you watch until the end he answers your objection. the point is economics: the cost-benefit principle, particularly with regard to the marginal cost (MC) vs benefit (MB) of having a carseat at each increased age level (MB stops outweighing the MC as soon as the kids are older than 2).

[@razm98]

@truthadvocate In almost every European, they don't see well out the window because the back of the seat and windows are pretty high, also the belt attachment is high as well (neck argument). The windows/seats are made for adults , not for small ones that are 1/4 their height. Don't trust me ? Try to place your 2 yo kid with an adult seatbelt in a VW Golf or Jetta. On the other hand your car seat should fit and give the child exactly the same protection in any car especially if it's an ISOFIX.

[@Mrcloc]

Sure, but how many small children will sit still in the car when not properly restrained? How many will undo the seatbelt? Car seats are tamper-proof, and they restrain the child from moving around the car.

[@MaherBaba]

my old car had this, no children die, 3-0

[@backdraft916]

The only time I’ve taken a dead kids out of a car seat, they ended up closed caskets. Saw lots of kids that probably would have lived had they been in a car seat.

[@clayvision]

Are you an officer?

[@nickbell6435]

When economists do physics... movement is good when crashing. Energy dissipation is force x distance and when you crash your kinetic energy needs to be dissipated. More distance means less force, and since your mass is fixed less force means less acceleration. And it's acceleration that does the serious damage; internal organ damage, veins/arteries ripped off the heart etc etc. Providing you don't induce whiplash by moving the head too far relative to the chest then movement is good.

[@zlamanit]

Car seats tested here are installed correctly with the seat belt and are shown to "fly around". Also 80% of car seats are supposed to be installed incorrectly (please don't quote me on that) which might make it even worse and could affect the statistics. I wonder how this compares with ISOFIX car seats that are much easier to install and have a rigid connection.

[@zlamanit]

@Philip Moseman I see what you did here, I'll better correct myself. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows 59 percent of car seats are not installed correctly.

[@MacKeyser]

And... this is why economists shouldn't do hard science. I say this as someone who started studying Econ in college and switched to the hard sciences and really appreciates both. Firstly, without accounting for all the variables, even if weighted, what you have is an acontextual data set and that can be very problematic in applied science. Moreover, age is a TERRIBLE metric for determining car seat efficacy. Weight is much better as is height. Had 5 kids, from 8lbs birth weight and became quite small for their age to VERY large, 99th percentile for their age. Just personally, I've had kids literally twice the size as the smallest at the same age (3-4 years old). I totally agree as someone who's likely spent THOUSANDS on car seats that medium and large, healthy, six year olds are typically just as well served by a seat belt, although, again, no data is presented with respect to rollover crashes, fully side impact crashes and a host of contingencies which are the very reason why any restraints are provided in the first place. From a personal perspective, my wife, me and my then 8.5 month old son were in an accident on a wet highway where we'd had to stop suddenly in our little Honda Civic and the guy behind us in a huge Oldsmobuick hit us going about 55mph at a slightly oblique angle. Took the jaws of life to get me and my son out...lots to that story, but it was uniformly believed by my son's doctors upon reflecting on the extent of his injuries that while he had a skull fracture due to impact from the at the time very new side head restraints, that without them, his neck would have snapped and he would have died instantly. Now, granted, he was 8.5 months at the time (27 now and very healthy and doing great) so not specifically the target of this TEDtalk, but part of the reason we are seeing side air bags placed next to the head even for adults is that lateral whiplash can actually be more traumatic than whiplash from a front/rear crash. Anyway, not shilling for the car seat industry...they already got my money and I'm glad to not have to buy another ever again. However, macro data sets don't necessarily speak to individual outcomes. Basically, just because there's this data out there doesn't mean that YOUR child is scientifically just as safe with a seat belt as with a car seat. The data simply points to a generalization and poorly at that considering that such an overly broad timeframe obviates technological improvements both with car seats and seat belts. Moreover, unless Mr Levitt or others were going to embark on a comprehensive set of crash tests...IN CARS...and measure the delta between seat belts and car seats for children 2-4, 4-6, 7-9 and different weight/height combinations, then all he's found is that IN GENERAL, there seems to be little differentiation between car seats writ large and seat belts. None of this is instructive. At most it simply leads to more questions, but what it absolutely does NOT do is point to a definite inefficiency in the markets or a place where the science is being misapplied. It is interesting and I'd be interested in seeing further studies on this, but the LAST thing this video should be used for is to rail against "intrusive gubmint".

[@AtroposLeshesis]

Hello Albert, I know you recently found TED talks. Welcome to KZbin!

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

If Volvo starts putting them in then everyone will.

[@dylanlawless1]

Have you ever noticed, when you learn a new fact or phrase it seems to follow you

[@bobbywest7970]

Interesting isn't it?

[@Diecon27]

Thank you Steven Levitt for this!!!!!

[@omg_look_behind_you]

my wife worked for ER doctors and saw plenty of images of fatalities due to the seat belt slicing open the victims neck. But I ride a motorcycle, so I'm set.

[@stephenpowstinger733]

Couldn't agree more, but morons might say - seatbelts and airbags can only work up to a certain speed, which varies with the size and construction of the car. Neck cuts probably occur with older airbagless cars.

[@JasonSmith0]

Was his comment about the crash test company's request for anonymity a joke? The company's logo is clearly visible in the crash test videos.

[@ThomasSmith-vx5ru]

Anonymous testing, but you can see calspan in the back and you know it's in Buffalo. Good job Steve.

[@pjesanna]

This is interesting and provocative talk, but you are not buckling your child just to save life but to prevent horrible injuries which are not in his statistics.

[@desert_jin6281]

In a car crash, the goal is to dissipate the kinetic energy over the greatest distance possible in order to reduce the maximum g-loading. As such, a child not moving much is subjected to high g-loadings, which is... well it's bad.

[@dryriverquinnie]

yeah rattle that baby!

[@williamchamberlain2263]

That's obviously why seatbelts are made out of stretchy elastic material then ...

[@boblast5582]

while watching the crash test videos, you noted the child seat moving as a negative. Why is that a negative? Thats energy being expelled that not being exerted into the child's body... I'm thinking about it the same way as crumple zones in cars...

[@williamchamberlain2263]

I think of it as the kid being allowed to accelerate and then having to be decelerated. Whereas if the seat worked properly the kid wouldn't have to decelerate so much. There are no crumple zones in car seats. Although that would probably be a good idea, especially with the rear-facing ones.

[@JNCressey]

A lot less movement is better? Whatever happened to work=force*distance? less distance means more force.

[@dhensby]

This! He's showing a video of a child decelerating slowly and criticising it as bad. The speaker would dismiss air bags because "look how slowly they slow the passengers down" "look how much they move about" "gosh, they hit that pillow thing coming out of the steering wheel"! His argument is full of factual and logical flaws 1. Not dying is a pretty low bar to set for a car seat (or seat belt) - as the audience member points out at the end. He then admits he has a small dataset that doesn't agree with a large dataset and can't reconcile how there could be a discrepancy that disagrees with his conclusion. 2. Large movement in a childseat is *good*, you want to slow down as much as possible. That's why the car seat performed better in the test. 3. No one makes a decision about their kids safety on economics or statistics. If it's a £100 car seat or a roll of the dice on being a statistic they pick a car seat because it covers the 95th percentile. Parents/carers will choose based on worst case not average case.

[@brkbtjunkie]

Less distance does not equal more force. You’re forgetting acceleration.

[@mauroylospichiruchis544]

@@dhensby I think the difference is a few centimeters, I dont think it would make much of a difference. Wait i did the calculation: 50 mph deceletaring to 0 in say 1mts vs say 1.20 mts gives you a difference of 17%. Anyway I do agree this guy hasnt really improved over its competition and even agrees seatbelts do slightly worse (1% is worse enough when it comes to child mortality). Is whole argument is chairs are not so much more gratest than seatbelt. A bit yes but not that much. So "i will just build another placebo seatbelt with my patent in it cause its all bollocks but you have to buy this speech first"

[@karagi101]

JNCressey You’re right. Best to distribute the stopping force over a longer time (and body surface area). Otherwise it’s like running full speed into a brick wall.

[@dhensby]

​@@mauroylospichiruchis544 A few centimetres in a high speed impact has a massive impact on the outcome. As you have roughly worked out it's 17% better, that's a monumental statistical improvement. Cars have all sorts of ways to increase your distance to slow by centimetres, the seatbelt sockets tear like a sardine can to help slow your deceleration by a fraction. His point at the end is valid. Why design seatbelts for adults in the back and then retrofit a big bulky and not very effective solution to them for kids? Instead build something on purpose for kids. That's a great point, but it's a shame his approach all the way up to that point is "car seats aren't worth the economic investment over a seatbelt given the small increase in benefit a car seat gives" and his misleading statements about how it's bad that a person moves around in a carseat.

[@thomaskennings]

Some good points but he said very conflicting and suspicious things during this speech, such as suggesting that his proposed car seats are just another placebo and claiming that the scoring system's variables "don't really matter."

[@jamthehut]

I'm glad someone is tackling child car seats. I've always been suspicious if that industry and they've ruined the development of something more appropriate for children.

[@MaddenScience]

Any word on the stats for rear facing kids? We’ve kept our son rear facing so far (he’s 3 1/3). I’ve read that other more advanced countries keep their kids rear facing up to age 4. Thoughts?

[@razm98]

4)This guy only talks about "goverment" and car seat companys conspiration. But let's not forget there are other countries except USA. In Europe there is extensive data and tests about car seats, from Adac, Euroncap and other independent organisations from germany, sweeden, etc. 4)Children ages 2-5 restrained by a seat belt only are 4 times more likely to suffer a head injury compared to those in a child restraint. CHOP Research Institute CPS Issue Report (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia).

[@dyanacollins4428]

There is one benefit that car seats had over seat belts, they are harder for the child to get out of. And some of us had children that did not want to sit still at all and will wriggle out of them. And toddlers entirely lack impulse control, there are limits to what a parent in traffic on the highway can do to control their behavior in the back seat, they shouldn't be in the front because of the air bags, and it can be argued that the distracted parent with a loose child in the back seat is now also a danger to other drviers.