I need techs response to this, I am trying to help my brother understand the importance of carseat safety

A

AleahDeann

Guest
My brother sent me this on face book today after I had posted about using a plastic cup to cover the seat belt buckle so my RFing 3.5 yr old doesnt kick it.

"Just to present an alternate view, I read this book "superfreakonomics" last year and it has a study that for two and up there is little difference between car seats and lap belts, feel free to comment, but please check it out http://michael-roberto.blogspot.com/2010/02/superfreakonomics-and-car-seats.html?m=1"

Can you please provide great links, info and whatever else on why what he link above is not a valid or good resource to use as a guide to child car seat safety!!

Thanks so much!
 
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LISmama810

Admin - CPS Technician
If you search the forum for "freakonomics" (especially if it's spelled right--mine might not be), you'll find a tin of threads on the topic.

I can't go into great detail now, but the bottom line is that, yes, a seatbelt alone will likely keep a perfectly seated 2-year-old from flying out of the car, as the study found. However, the study didn't use dummies that measure things like abdominal injuries, nor is it in any way remotely likely that a 2-year-old will sit properly in a seatbelt.

So in reality, you're likely to have a dead and/or ejected child.
 

ConnorsMommy

New member
According to this link: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809762.pdf
Research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found them to reduce
fatal injury by 71 percent for infants (less than 1 year old) and by 54 percent for toddlers (1-4 years old) in passenger cars. For infants and toddlers in light trucks, the corresponding reductions are 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively.
From 1975 through 2003, an estimated 7,020 lives were saved by the use of child restraints (child safety seats or adult belts). In 2003, an estimated 446 children under age 5 were saved as a result of child restraint use.
If 100 percent of motor vehicle occupants under 5 years old were protected by child safety seats, an estimated 550 lives (that is, an additional 106) could have been saved in 2003.
 

ks227

New member
If you search the forum for "freakonomics" (especially if it's spelled right--mine might not be), you'll find a tin of threads on the topic.

I can't go into great detail now, but the bottom line is that, yes, a seatbelt alone will likely keep a perfectly seated 2-year-old from flying out of the car, as the study found. However, the study didn't use dummies that measure things like abdominal injuries, nor is it in any way remotely likely that a 2-year-old will sit properly in a seatbelt.

So in reality, you're likely to have a dead and/or ejected child.

We enjoy the Freakonomics books (we own both) and the column that they write. However, I disagree with their assessment of the benefit of child restraints versus seatbelts alone. They based their assumptions by commissioning a limited crash test using dummies and I don't doubt their statistical analysis or the results of that testing - a dummy can use a seatbelt perfectly in a sled-based collision, but as has been stated a 2 year old is highly unlikely to do so. I have a 2.5 year old and I'd never trust her to sit correctly with a seatbelt/booster!

Part of their assumption is that because most parents use/install car seats wrong, statistically kids would be just as safe with easier-to-use seatbelts. Now, I don't know the details of the study they did - whether it was just a sled and frontal impact testing, if any offset/side impact testing was done, or if any computer modeling was involved. I don't know if they purposely incorrectly used the test seat, or even what car seat(s) were used for the testing. I could pull out my copy of the book and check later in the day (once I'm snowed in ;) ). I'm pretty sure that I recall them not giving a lot of detail at the request of the lab which performed the crash testing - they wanted to remain anonymous.

Without details of how the test was set up and instrumented, I'm not going to trust my kid's life to their conclusions. Real kids slump, shift, pull out the shoulder belt for comfort, etc. and that's where a simple crash test with a dummy or even a computer model breaks down. Real crashes are messy, not neat collisions of a sled into a barrier with no offset angle or other forces at play.

Yes, Levitt is a gifted economist who's far better at statistical analysis than I will ever be. But I'm an engineer who knows more than a little bit about solid body dynamics, and I'm a mom of a 2.5 year old - physics and common sense says that you can't look only at very limited crash test data (where the people who commissioned the study didn't even release actual engineering data!) to make an assessment like that, you need to review actual crash injury and fatality statistics. When you do, you see overwhelming evidence that for actual use, car seats and boosters save lives.
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
The blog has a blurb... http://carseatblog.com/4857/its-super-freaky-yow/
I think since they first started saying carseats aren't any safer, the death rate has fallen for the 1-4 age group, the group that typically rides harnessed due to state laws.

http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/brok...=lcd1age&ethnicty=0&ranking=10&deathtle=Death (that's 2010, here's 2002)... http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/brok...=lcd1age&ethnicty=0&ranking=10&deathtle=Death

Granted, I cherry-picked the data, randomly looking for years that show a fairly dramatic decrease, but it still shows the rates going way down. Car seats? Safer cars? Economic downturn that has fewer kids riding fewer miles as their parents are unemployed and there's no daycare to drive to? Better DUI and don't talk on the phone/text laws? Could be anything... but still, I can't imagine how tired I'd get telling a 2 year old to sit properly in the car all the time. Would my very distraction and the expense buying them toys to sit still increase the risk and negate the savings of not buying carseats? There's just so much the Steves didn't cover...
 

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