Re: The OFFICIAL Britax Frontier Spoilers & Speculation thread (part 2)
Anyway, I just had to point out that we've had discussions before about how we approach the idea of seat recommendation, and most of us agree it's useless to send a parent away with simply a list of ideas or features to look for, in a sea of seats they'll be lost. I make sure to stay neutral and not recommend one brand over another, but I will definitely list specific seats in various price ranges that will work for the situation. I list the features those seats have. If some have EPS foam and deeper wings, I'll say so.
I think honesty can be achieved while still being neutral and fair.
Jenny, I respect that. And I've observed you personally giving a wide range of seats and pointing out different safety features. However, there are techs that post on this board who seem to go out of their way to recommend non-Britax seats, just on their own personal principle that "Britax is in no way superior". People who come here looking for advice get told, "Every seat on the market has passed gov't standards, and therefore are equally safe." This may or may not be true, as we've all discussed at length. And I've seen it written here more times than I can count that a Scenera is just as safe as a Marathon. Now, most people who know both seats will be able to spot the fallicy in that line, but what about someone who really has no knowledge about EPS foam and figures that Britax is just a fancy brand name with nothing more to offer than pretty covers and a high price tag? Even my parents, who know nothing about seats, can deduce that a child's head colliding with a plastic seat shell will incur more damage than if they were to smack into EPS foam- BUT if they are told by certified professionals that the 2 products are equally safe, well, why shouldn't they believe them?
The track record of some companies and how they've handled information about their own dangerous seats speaks for itself. The day that it's proven (in a court of law i.e. the Evenflo case) that a child was permanantly injured or killed by a Britax seat that Britax knew was dangerous, I'll be the first to admit that Britax might not be superior. Until then, well, Britax's quality speaks for itself. They've recalled seats, like Dana mentioned, where no one was injured. It takes Evenflo and Dorel being sued for a child's death and/or permanant injury to take the same action. I'm NOT saying that Britax is undoubtedly the safest brand of seats. But neither is it correct to say, "Britax does NOT make the safest seats", because really, we don't know that to be factual.
Sure some people want to buy what's cheapest. For whatever reason. But others want to buy what's safest. And they get fed the same, "The seat which fits your child, your vehicle and your budget and that you will use correctly every time is safest". Dana is right, safety and cost have NO correlation. Fitting into a budget does not affect how safe a seat is, and I think it's wrong to pretend that it does. It's okay to be honest with people and say, "It's SAFER to have your child in a seat with no EPS foam and shallow sides than, say, in nothing or an expired seat, but it's SAFEST to have them in a seat that's been tested in many many scenarios and has been engineered to withstand those different types of collisions."
Having kids means you make all sorts of hard choices. But trying to make people feel better about not wanting to or not being able to spend a certain amount of money at the possible expense of their child's safety by saying, "Everything is just as safe as everything else" isn't right, IMO. Better to be honest and say, "This feature may very well be safer. We don't know for sure, but this particular company does more extensive testing and developed the product as a result of said testing."