I knew most of the stuff relating to car seats (though ALR/ELR confused me until I saw it actually done on a seatbelt). The NHTSA's five roles in child safety was new to me, but after the test on Friday I think that'll be pushed into the back of my head anyway.
What annoyed me was when we were in the cars looking at the seatbelts, since my car was one of the ones chosen, the instructors were in there too. They were playing with my install of Piper's seat and they didn't like it. The stalk is simply too long. I can't twist the strap AND use a lockoff, according to them, and since Britax requires a lockoff, then I can't twist the strap at all. There was also a huge pause when they heard she was nearly four years old and rearfacing. So they wanted to move her outboard. I said I don't want her outboard, I want her in the middle. Then they said that if she was to be outboard then the passenger side was safest (I thought it was personal decision, in class not but two hours before they had said statistically there was little difference). I asked why. She said, 1) if I need to pull over on the side of the highway then she'll be on the passenger side and therefore not on the road side (that's not guaranteed, I've pulled off on the left. Plus she's old enough to be told, "Piper, meet me at that door," and if she wasn't I could climb into the car from that side and get her out anyway). 2) On the driver side she's at risk of being involved on a two lane road in a side swipe, should it happen. I can't disagree with this one, but if she's on the other side then if I need to swerve I'm put in the position of do I put her in the way, or me. Plus I can't reach her either way outboard. I know in an ideal world kids sit in their seats with no possible projectiles amusing themselves for the trip while Mom and Dad sit perfectly facing forward, barely moving except to check the mirrors, but this isn't fantasyland, this is reality. I need to be able to reach Piper. And I can't do that outboard. Behind me she's too hard to reach, and passenger side she's too far away (I sit as close to the steering wheel as possible with the seatback as upright as possible). Plus they installed her forward facing (actually, I did, I wanted them to check me as I did it, but they suggested forward and I suggested me installing it). Why would they not advocate her rearfacing since she doesn't meet the limits of the seat, which is another thing they had just said about two hours before?
So I'm annoyed. There seem to be inconsistencies with what they're teaching and what they're telling me. Then I'm annoyed my seat doesn't fit in my car. Easy solution to that, though, get a new car. Told Nathan that we need one. We'll see. I'm annoyed because all of the coursework says 1 AND 20 pounds, not 18 months AND 30 pounds. If they're going to start changing people's minds, don't you think they'd start with brand new techs?
They did have a new Safeseat 1 & 2 there, as well as a Britax Laptop, which was cool to finally handle. They had a trailer FULL of carseats, I need to take a picture tomorrow, but we haven't played with any actual installations tomorrow. Just looked at seatbelts/latchplates/LATCH etc. today. Lots of yada yada and not so much in the carseat department. But you guys are right. Most of the nitty gritty stuff that pertains to carseats I got without a problem (I did get wrong that a frontal crash is not more deadly than a lateral, I thought frontal. I won't make that mistake again). I think I was also the only one to climb in a car and go butt up over a seat trying to find the tether anchors (a 2005 Explorer, the cargo hooks are the tether points, and they're not labelled).
Plus we got caught out in the rain today. Blech. Tomorrow will be worse with 2"-5" of rain predicted.
Oh well. It'll be fun, and I'll learn a bit more, but boy I wish I could just take the test (without the boring red tape NHTSA stuff) and be done with it. I am looking forward to handling something other than Britax and Radians, though.
Wendy
What annoyed me was when we were in the cars looking at the seatbelts, since my car was one of the ones chosen, the instructors were in there too. They were playing with my install of Piper's seat and they didn't like it. The stalk is simply too long. I can't twist the strap AND use a lockoff, according to them, and since Britax requires a lockoff, then I can't twist the strap at all. There was also a huge pause when they heard she was nearly four years old and rearfacing. So they wanted to move her outboard. I said I don't want her outboard, I want her in the middle. Then they said that if she was to be outboard then the passenger side was safest (I thought it was personal decision, in class not but two hours before they had said statistically there was little difference). I asked why. She said, 1) if I need to pull over on the side of the highway then she'll be on the passenger side and therefore not on the road side (that's not guaranteed, I've pulled off on the left. Plus she's old enough to be told, "Piper, meet me at that door," and if she wasn't I could climb into the car from that side and get her out anyway). 2) On the driver side she's at risk of being involved on a two lane road in a side swipe, should it happen. I can't disagree with this one, but if she's on the other side then if I need to swerve I'm put in the position of do I put her in the way, or me. Plus I can't reach her either way outboard. I know in an ideal world kids sit in their seats with no possible projectiles amusing themselves for the trip while Mom and Dad sit perfectly facing forward, barely moving except to check the mirrors, but this isn't fantasyland, this is reality. I need to be able to reach Piper. And I can't do that outboard. Behind me she's too hard to reach, and passenger side she's too far away (I sit as close to the steering wheel as possible with the seatback as upright as possible). Plus they installed her forward facing (actually, I did, I wanted them to check me as I did it, but they suggested forward and I suggested me installing it). Why would they not advocate her rearfacing since she doesn't meet the limits of the seat, which is another thing they had just said about two hours before?
So I'm annoyed. There seem to be inconsistencies with what they're teaching and what they're telling me. Then I'm annoyed my seat doesn't fit in my car. Easy solution to that, though, get a new car. Told Nathan that we need one. We'll see. I'm annoyed because all of the coursework says 1 AND 20 pounds, not 18 months AND 30 pounds. If they're going to start changing people's minds, don't you think they'd start with brand new techs?
They did have a new Safeseat 1 & 2 there, as well as a Britax Laptop, which was cool to finally handle. They had a trailer FULL of carseats, I need to take a picture tomorrow, but we haven't played with any actual installations tomorrow. Just looked at seatbelts/latchplates/LATCH etc. today. Lots of yada yada and not so much in the carseat department. But you guys are right. Most of the nitty gritty stuff that pertains to carseats I got without a problem (I did get wrong that a frontal crash is not more deadly than a lateral, I thought frontal. I won't make that mistake again). I think I was also the only one to climb in a car and go butt up over a seat trying to find the tether anchors (a 2005 Explorer, the cargo hooks are the tether points, and they're not labelled).
Plus we got caught out in the rain today. Blech. Tomorrow will be worse with 2"-5" of rain predicted.
Oh well. It'll be fun, and I'll learn a bit more, but boy I wish I could just take the test (without the boring red tape NHTSA stuff) and be done with it. I am looking forward to handling something other than Britax and Radians, though.
Wendy