Submitted by Cedric Hughes on Tue, 03/23/2010 - 10:18
Child seat belt laws in British Columbia (since July 1, 2008) require:
- Children up to 1 year of age and weighing 9 kg or 20 pounds must ride in a rear facing car seat;
- Children at least 1 year of age and weighing at least 9 kg or 20 pounds but less than 18 kg or 40 pounds must ride in an appropriate car seat; and
- Children up to at least 145 cm or 4 feet 9 inches in height or a minimum of 9 years old must ride in a booster seat.
There are many models from many different manufacturers for all these types of car seats and they must all securely attach to all the various types and models of vehicles. It is no surprise therefore, that car seat design and installation are the subject of ongoing innovation, testing, and recall. But they are not or at least have not been the subject of debate about their essential effectiveness. That is until Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics bySteven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (HarperCollinsCanada, 2005 and 2009) hit the bestseller lists.
Mr. Levitt and Mr. Dubner examine the proposition advanced by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that car seats save children’s lives, “reducing the risk of fatality by 54% for children ages one to four.” They contend that this 54% reduction makes sense when compared, as it was, to a child riding completely unrestrained—“no car seat, no seat belt, no nothing.” But, while acknowledging that seat belts plainly “won’t do for children under two years,” they wondered how much better the “complicated and costly new solution (the car seat)” was for children over two years. They analyzed the Fatality Analysis Reporting System data and found “no evidence that car seats are better than seat belts in saving the lives of children two and older” and, indeed, performed slightly worse in rear-enders.
To test whether improper installation was the root cause of this finding, they compared outcomes for crash test dummies (CTDs) in properly installed car seats and CTDs in seat belts. The “adult seat belts passed the crash test with flying colours” and, in fact, “exceeded every requirement for how a child safety seat should perform.” They concluded that although child seats are legally mandated, their protective benefit relative to seat belts for two to six year old children does not justify the “more than $300-million [spent] a year buying four million car seats.”
If Messrs. Levitt and Dubner were aiming to at least promote a more vigorous defense of car seat mandates they succeeded handsomely. In late October 2009, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood unequivocally disagreed with their conclusion and on the US Department of Transportation blog directed readers to the plentiful “analysis supporting the common-sense decision to use child safety seats and booster seats.” The “world’s largest manufacturer of child restraint systems” called their crash test data misleading and their “sensationalist style” irresponsible with possibly catastrophic consequences.
And remember, the law is still the law.
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The data always speaks to those who are interpreting it. The noted economist Levitt from the U of C does indeed have the analytical skills credentials required to arrive at the conclusions he has. In my opinion he fell just short of hitting the root cause of his conclusion. He failed to consider the fact that the car seats he is comparing against do not work from side impact. There is no side impact regulation for car seats. The question is, why not. You can't regulate the car seat industry that can not deliver a car seat that would pass the test. The conventional wisdom is this ... they are better than nothing. That is the mantra of the safety experts ... they shrug there shoulders as they tally the mounting body count year after year. Its a gruesome situation being perpetrated by greedy commercial interests and politicians dancing to their tunes.