Today Show's Piece on puffy coats and car seats

Did anyone else see this today.
http://www.today.com/parents/car-seat-alert-could-wearing-winter-coat-endanger-your-child-t61206

While the information is very valuable the methods they used leave a lot to be desired. The harness was SOOOOOO loose on the dummy. The live model they has was the host's son. He could definitely use a lesson in chest clip positioning and how to check for proper harness tightness.

I always love reading all of your opinions about stuff like this.

Ready, Set, GO!!!

I thought it was pretty good. Showed him in properly at the end. And I think the crash tests brought home the main point. And I liked at the end they said no one should wear puffy coats under their seatbelt. So that was good.

I liked that they showed him being told how to fix ALL his mistakes.

The crash test showed typical levels of misuse IME.

ketchupqueen said:

I liked that they showed him being told how to fix ALL his mistakes.

The crash test showed typical levels of misuse IME.

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:yeahthat: I have no doubt Miriam Manary set that crash test up. I'm glad they showed clear shots of what a tight harness looks like. I do wish they showed good alternatives to jacket-less riding; there are some places where going without a jacket just isn't feasible or the kid will toss off a backwards jacket or blanket. Fleece is perfectly acceptable.

While the misuse may have been typical, I think the message would have been a lot clearer if the coat-wearing dummy's harness had been tightened to the pinch test when the coat was on. It would be easy for any parent who knew the basics to say, "well, that's just because they didn't tighten it enough."

Kind of on the flip side, my in-laws', for example, definitely need periodic reminders about appropriate harness tightness regardless of the weather. I have my fingers crossed that they didn't see this because they would use it as justification that they don't need to pull the slack out from the leg area. I am sure the first thing they would say would be, "see? Even when there was visible slack at the shoulders, the tech at the beginning said that the harness 'looked tight'!"

Heather, I think the best winter weather demo I have seen was your BundleMe video. I think the fact that you showed that "perfect use" of the BundleMe still resulted in an unsafe harness is what made that video so compelling. I really wish we could have seen a crash test comparing "perfect use" with a coat versus "perfect use" without a coat.


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Nedra said:

Heather, I think the best winter weather demo I have seen was your BundleMe video. I think the fact that you showed that "perfect use" of the BundleMe still resulted in an unsafe harness is what made that video so compelling. I really wish we could have seen a crash test comparing "perfect use" with a coat versus "perfect use" without a coat.

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Where is this video? Google isn't helping me!

lgenne said:

Where is this video? Google isn't helping me!

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http://youtu.be/cOzei1dTbBw


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