Vent!!

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
This is copied from my blog, it's too long to retype.

Piper and Nathan went today with some friends down to Myrtle Beach, SC. Our friend has a private plane and so he flew them down. Three four year olds and three dads. They had a great time. Nathan took a lot of fun pictures.

What has me peeved is the whole transportation thing. Piper rode to the airport in a friend's Marathon. So far so good. Her straps were too loose. Not obnoxiously she's-going-to-be-ejected loose, but looser than they should be.

Nathan talked to his friend and asked if we needed to bring our seat. No, she could use one of his kid's Marathon's. Great, I say. Saves us uninstalling and reinstalling it at home (like it's hard, Nathan's is LATCH and mine is so indented into the seat it practically installs itself. In fact I redid hers today for kicks). But no, that's not how it worked. On the plane they had BOOSTERS. Now granted, the plane is a six seater with shoulder belts, but still, boosters are NOT FAA approved. No carseat is approved for use in a rear facing seat. So they had kids in backless boosters (did I mention they were four?) in rear facing seats. And at one point one of the kids (not mine, of course, mine knows better) didn't even have the shoulder part on. I don't know if it comes off separately from the lap, or if he just tucked it behind him, but irrelevant. He was now in a backless booster in a rear facing seat with just a lap belt. HOLY S**T! Let's see what else we can do to the kid. I do know he's over 40 pounds. His parents were eagerly awaiting his 40 pound mark so they could get him out of his carseat ASAP. Sigh. He wasn't even four at that point.

So then when they get to SC instead of using the Marathon as I thought they were going to they used boosters for everyone. Backless for the other two and a high back for Piper. Gah, but ok. She can handle it, she's a safety freak. Other than they had her in a Combi booster (I don't know which one, if Nathan hadn't taken a picture I wouldn't have known it was a Combi and I doubt he would have either) and that rates at 33 pounds to start. So she was Crash Test Piper for the day. This is why she rarely travels with Nathan. He means well and he does much better than 99% of the population. But you HAVE TO READ THE F***ING STICKERS! At least. The manual is even better, but if you're borrowing a seat take four minutes and read the stickers! Not that they could have done anything about it in SC anyway since the Marathon was in NC and her Wizards and Radian were in our garage!!!

She and Nathan have gone on a trip only once before this (well, twice, but the other time was in Nathan's car so I knew her seat was installed well and that he knew out to use it and it was adjusted properly, etc.). I made him take her Wizard, and as soon as I got there I got it out of their rental car and into my truck (that was the time I installed her seat and the seatbelt popped open and I flew out of the car and onto the driveway).

I can't wait until she's older. If this is going to happen again I'm simply going to buy her a Parkway to use. That will be hers (Nathan said the Marathon was brown under all the spots it had on it, ick. But that's how I knew it was a Marathon, he had no idea, I don't think the Decathalon or Boulevard have a brown cover) and I know it'll be rated to her weight. I would have sent the Radian along but E said Piper could use one of his son's seats, so I assumed, as did Nathan, that the Marathon would be going with them to Myrtle Beach.

In his defense, Nathan thought they were crazy for being so unsafe, and they thought he was crazy for being so anal. He saw and recognized mistakes they were making. I have rubbed off. He just acknowledges it and lets it go, whereas it pisses me off, and things like this between my daughter and people I know can make me honestly not want to be around them (I already shiver at the idea. The mom's a bit on the psychotic side, and their house makes my skin crawl. You can't walk across the family room without stepping on a toy). They're nice people, but this is something important to me and they go absolutely against what I believe. This isn't a religion either, where I don't have any Truth or Knowledge. This is facts and physics, and I do know what will happen and how people can ignore it when they have the ability to keep their kids safer is beyond me. They turned their kids at or before their first birthdays. Move to a booster as soon as 40 pounds is hit. Sigh.

On another note, I had to move up the harness on Piper's Radian to the top slots. She's not quite over the bottom ones, but if she's wearing thicker pants and a fleece, or is sitting completely upright you have to look hard to find out if she's at or above the slots. So it was time. They're going to be up by her ears. She's got several inches in it, though. Even though she's long torsoed (they had to move up the headrest for her on the booster today).

Also, today (Sunday) we went to a friend's baptism for their little boy. A friend came carrying him in in his Chicco Keyfit. Nice seat. :) I peek in to see him and his chest clip is touching the crotch strap and I could probably fit most of my fist under his straps! ARGH So I pulled the mom aside discreetly and mentioned these to her, and also what a great seat she had. She said she got the 411 from her brother yesterday as well. THEN WHY WASN'T THE CHEST CLIP HIGHER?? Seriously, between the clip and the straps he wouldn't have been restrained fairly well. Maybe his elbows would have caught him.

Anyway, argh.

Oh, edited to add, my mom called me yesterday asking what the law was about how long a child must be rear facing. She's in NY. I don't know the law, but the AAP recommends... and it's so much safer... She says a student of hers (she's a professor at a community college) has a grandchild who is getting too big for the infant seat. The mom went to the ped and asked about turning him (not yet six months) forward because he's 20 pounds already and his feet are hanging over... The ped said UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES. Go ped! I told my mom, though, that if the grandmother needed a seat the Scenera is highly recommended for grandparents, it's cheap, lightweight, and RFs to 35 pounds. So my mom went out and bought one for them!!!! Wow! Go Mom! She was very carseat concientious when we were kids, and she still is. :)

Wendy
 
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lovinwaves

New member
Aww Wendy, that would be very frustrating for me to!

Good for your momma!!! That's awesome that you are rubbing off on so many people! :D
 

Patriot201

Car-Seat.org Ambassador
Oh no!!! I wonder what Piper thought about all this. It sounds like she knows her stuff. I wonder if she was horrified, as well.


Good for your mom about the Scenera! How generous of her!
 

Yoshi

New member
Wendy, sorry to hear about all the mistakes regarding the carseat usage on the trip. My DH used to fly single engine planes (Cessnas, Pipers, etc) but he wasn't a Daddy way back then. (This was way back in his carefree bachelor days before I knew him:rolleyes: ) I know he used to fly family around, and our nephew Jesse, who is now 22 yrs old used to go on some of the jaunts...but that was when carseats weren't even used all the time even in CARS! He would just sit on his mom's lap in one of the rear seats of the plane :eek:

I guess maybe if your DH and Piper are going on any trips in the future, you two need to sit down with your own mutually agreed upon plan with some "absolutely no backless booster" clause written in;) . This way he can be prepared if someone tries to pull a fast one on him. You are one brave mama though to let her go on small planes w/out you! I am such a neurotic mama, I can't imagine it.

Which NY community college is your mom teaching at if you don't mind me asking....I live near Ulster and Dutchess.
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
I guess maybe if your DH and Piper are going on any trips in the future, you two need to sit down with your own mutually agreed upon plan with some "absolutely no backless booster" clause written in;) . This way he can be prepared if someone tries to pull a fast one on him. You are one brave mama though to let her go on small planes w/out you! I am such a neurotic mama, I can't imagine it.

Which NY community college is your mom teaching at if you don't mind me asking....I live near Ulster and Dutchess.

We had worked it out. Called the dad, decided his Britax was fine. I don't know what happened between that and then the plane. Nathan knows she's not big enough for the plane's seat alone, and he was ignorant of the regulations regarding boosters and planes (we're not to boosters here yet). He probably figured if there was a shoulder belt it was ok. I told him they had to pass the inversion test, and a booster wouldn't.

The Combi was high backed. I think even he would have freaked about a low back. In fact the other dads gave him grief that he insisted on so much safety. Whatever, they can kill their own kids. I'm all for education, but when the dad tells me, "This is our parental decision, we do it differently from you," what else can you say? Fine. I reserve the right for told you so's later.

My mom teaches at Columbia Green Community College. I grew up in Columbia county. :)

Wendy
 

Yoshi

New member
I guess you did mention how you had it worked out- your post was so long, I forgot the details by the time I replied!:eek: II am SO sleep deprived this weekend!

I guess maybe now your DH should have learned a lesson, so to speak, since this scenario proved that real life often throws us curveballs. He was already there, and didn't have much choice in the end result of using the Combi high back booster. Yikes. What a weird situation with that family.

And I'm near Columbia Greene, too! What a small world- my best friend lives in Germantown, Columbia County.
 
Ugh! Tons of frustration there for you. I guess in the future, the only thing you can do to absolutely ensure she'll be restrained the safest way possible is to use your own seat, regardless of the inconvenience.

I don't know what would have been best to do in the case of the plane's RF seats. :confused: I'd have been stumped in that situation, and probably just used the BBs (without having a convertible handy) and hoped for the best.

Good onya to your mom for her conscientiousness and generosity!
 

wendytthomas

Admin - CPST Instructor
Staff member
Ugh! Tons of frustration there for you. I guess in the future, the only thing you can do to absolutely ensure she'll be restrained the safest way possible is to use your own seat, regardless of the inconvenience.

I don't know what would have been best to do in the case of the plane's RF seats. :confused: I'd have been stumped in that situation, and probably just used the BBs (without having a convertible handy) and hoped for the best.

Good onya to your mom for her conscientiousness and generosity!

I don't know. All of the seats have shoulder belts. So rear facing seats or not, you can't use a booster. I'd probably have put the dads in those seats, put one of the kids up front, and the other two kids facing forward in the back.

Wendy
 
Ahh. I'm not familiar with the seats in that type of plane. I was thinking that there were *only* RF seats. Yes, your option makes more sense than using BBs RF with a lap/shoulder belt...
 

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