Kinda O/T: Baby Seats & the Law

[Deuce Rails]

I was at the pediatrician's office with my four-month-old today. While I was waiting, I read a brochure on baby seats, and got to thinking.

In the US, the law requires rear-facing baby seats up to one year old. The reasoning is that before that age, the baby's neck muscles aren't strong enough to resist an impact.

So... Doesn't that imply that the impact is going to be a head-on collision? Doesn't a rear-facing seat make it a lot safer if you hit something, but that much less safe if you're struck from behind?

I've never hit another car in my life. I have, however, been rear-ended a couple of times.

So, statistically speaking, isn't the law requiring me to put my kid in a more dangerous position?

[Roothawg]

I think the opposite.
WQhen you get hit from behind you lunge forward.

[Kevin Lee]

The wife took weeks and weeks of training to be certified to do installations. I can ask her about it tonight but I do know this. The rear facing seat (in the middle if possible) does safely allow a more reclined position until the baby can keep it's head up better. Babies have suffocated from falling asleep and slumping forward in an improperly installed seat.

A couple more things: For christsake get rid of the dangly toys that hang above a baby in the car. Dangerous stuff in an accident. The nice little pulldown sunshades that stick to the window? They come off in an accident and each end becomes a javelin. Bad news. Paraniod? Maybe. I don't leave anything heavy laying loose in my car anymore. And everything gets tied down when we go on a trip. I've heard some really sad stories.

[roadstar]

When you get hit hard from behind the head gets snaped back. I get trucks in the shop that have been rearended hard and the head will sometimes break out the rear window.

So IMO you have a very valid point. I'm sure there have been studies done on rear vs front impacts..

Slightly unrelated but not compleatly. The day I brought my son home from the hospital It was the law he had to be straped into a car seat. From that day on I have also worn my seatbelt, before that I didn't give it much thought.

[manyolcars]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the opposite.
When you get hit from behind you lunge forward.

[/ QUOTE ] The car lunges forward. then your head snaps back--think-whiplash

[manyolcars]

This is another case of the safety nazi's trying to outlaw everything 'unsafe'. They NEVER think of other circumstances. Like the motorcycle helmets added weight on your neck. or the FACT that the helmet while sliding on the pavement can get hot, briefly stick to the pavement and cause your head to spin, snapping your neck. There a lot of other unintended consequences.

[Smokin Joe]

I think there are more bashed grills than rear bumpers by a wide margin. And not just from 2 car accidents. First snow of the year and we have busted light poles, telephone poles and fence posts everywhere. There's a light pole a few blocks from my house where someone slid down a hill, thru a stop sign, across the T intersection and snapped off the 10 inch pole on the other side of the sidewalk. This is in a residential neighborhood with a 25mph speed limit. They probably locked their brakes on the wet polished ice at the top of the hill and were still doing 25 when they hit the pole. Happened last Thursday night. Stupid assed city keeps replacing the poles instead of moving it over 20 ft so dipshits will just slide into the grassy park.

[MichaelDorman]

I've ridden motorcycles since I was 9 and rode street bikes for a while without a helmet. I would now never think of riding without one and for what it's worth, if your helmet is skidding down the road with enough speed and force to melt it to the road your head would have been ground to a nub anyways, along with the rest of your appendages. I've had a nuber of freinds involved in high speed motocycle accidents involving months of hospitilization and rehabilition, the only one who died was the one who never wore a helmet.

[DrJ]

I think if the government has any laws about safety equipment at all it should require all cars to have 5 point safety harnesses, figure 8 racer style side impact protection and race car roll cage systems and all passengers regardless of age, dress, or destination should be required to wear full fire suits, helmets and Hans devices.
Or it should stay out of people's personal lives and let them fend for themselves if they want to.
If air bags were a good idea, they would put them on all NASCAR cars.

Cars should have stop lights on the FRONT so you know if someone you have to make a left turn in front of because the light already turned green for cross traffic is actually stopping or is still going to run the red light and hit you (too damn common around here)
I also think changing lanes without signaling or slowing down to turn without signaling when the slowing down starts so people behind you know you what the hell your intent is and didn't just run out of gas should be bigger fine violations than speeding.
Driving in the 'fast lane" slower than the traffic in the next lane over should be illegal and enforced.
If you have even one car gaining on you and you can't go faster than the #2 lane you should get the hell out of the #1 lane, it's that simple.
There shouldn't be a speed limit in the #1 lane other than "safe speed law" meaning if you loose it because you couldn't handle the speed you were speeding.

Don't get me started... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[InPrimer]

DrJ, you are 100% correct, unfortunately, drivers are self centered and they know what they are thinking , unfortunately we can't read their minds, and more rules and laws won't help

[G V Gordon]

"After my accident, I have half a mind to start wearing a helmet"
Gary Busey http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Rooster]

Actually I think it was Dr. J being correct, when postin on driver safety once on another post referring to the lack of public safety due to giving licenses out to idiots being a Govt. income generator rather than actual indicator of who should be on the roads.

I was just wondering the whole thing about child restraints over the weekend again when we were out runnin around in the hearse which is too old for belts and I haven't had time to upgrade yet. I had my daughter in her carseat wedged between the rear seat and the partition even though there wasn't anything to strap it to. It was More to keep her from runnin around the back than anything else though!...

[DrJ]

A frind of mine now has two seat belts in his '61 Impala, both in the back seat for his two young kids.

All governments are nothing more than the biggest GANG in town.
All their licensing is really for is to skim their cut off the top of every dollar we earn, every dollar we spend and fucking thing we do in our day to day get-by.
For instance.
Alcohol is legal and taxed because it's a time consuming pain in the ass to distill nd make taste half way decent.
Marijuana is illegal because it grows like the weed it is and the only way to make a profit off it is to make it by arbitrarily fining or imprisoning people for being "vegitarians"
Why are there annual vehicle license fees? To skim more of our money.
Otherwise, if it really is desired to have an id on every car, they could just have the makers put the VIN number across the back of the car in 2" tall font...No fees. build roads just from the per gallon gasoline tax we get charged too.
Arnold The Governator was going to repeal the recently tripled car tax/license fees increase. Now he's thinking he needs it to pay for the forest fires...?
How about a ski rental tax since the slopes just opened today in those same mountains because the rain/snow was just a week too late to save the trees?

I used to make the crash test dummies for a living. I managed the R & D and "reverse-engineering" design of some of them. I completely support any safety device use peole voluntarily want to use to attempt to keep their families safe.
Air bags scare the hell out of me because I have these two ovals of glass in a rigid wire fram in front on my eyes and I fear being blinded by aaa bag..I've bent dash boards and broke windshields with my head.
I don't see the need for the bag being forced on me.

I also feel sorry for children who are forced to live in those car seats. Infants need to be held and hugged and made to feel wanted or they run a higher risk of autism...even apes know to cuddle their babies, yet I see people hauling their kids around in plastic vegetible basket/seats and never touching them. No wonder so many kids are growing up like Children of the Corn. they don't know what love is.

Rambler's running out of gas again....

[autocol]

[ QUOTE ]
Like the motorcycle helmets

[/ QUOTE ]

please tell me you're not seriously suggesting that, in 99.9% of all accidents, you're not better off with a helmet!?

my mum's friend works in a trauma recovery ward and her stories are all the evidence i need to convince me that helmets are a good idea in every way.

well, that and common sense...

[DrJ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Like the motorcycle helmets

[/ QUOTE ]

please tell me you're not seriously suggesting that, in 99.9% of all accidents, you're not better off with a helmet!?

my mum's friend works in a trauma recovery ward and her stories are all the evidence i need to convince me that helmets are a good idea in every way.

well, that and common sense...

[/ QUOTE ]

The best way to not be a motorcycle accident statistic is don't get on one.

The next is don't get in a collision with another vehicle, (or tree) and the best way to do that is to have your full range of sight and hearing available to you at all times.

I think a person would be a fool to ride in Los Angeles traffic without a helmet because car driver's really and frequently try to run you down, but I also believe in personal freedoms and a right to make choices, no matter how stupid they are, so there shouldn't be any damn helmet laws. Whether kids wear them or not should be up to their parents, not the gestapo.
Besides, hospitals are always saying they need organ doners.....

[Deuce Rails]

[ QUOTE ]
Air bags scare the hell out of me because I have these two ovals of glass in a rigid wire fram in front on my eyes...

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, shit. I hadn't even thought of that. Now that I have, I can't get the thought out of my head. Thanks, DrJ.

[modernbeat]

[ QUOTE ]
Air bags scare the hell out of me because I have these two ovals of glass in a rigid wire fram in front on my eyes...


[/ QUOTE ]

Glass? or polycarbonate that you couldn't break with a hammer and an anvil? Mine sunglasses are glass (wayfarers) but when I wore corrective glasses I remember them being much lighter and unbreakable. God, I wished I could break them and get a better looking pair!

[DrJ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Air bags scare the hell out of me because I have these two ovals of glass in a rigid wire fram in front on my eyes...


[/ QUOTE ]

Glass? or polycarbonate that you couldn't break with a hammer and an anvil? Mine sunglasses are glass (wayfarers) but when I wore corrective glasses I remember them being much lighter and unbreakable. God, I wished I could break them and get a better looking pair!

[/ QUOTE ]

I still get glass, in photo-whatever-it's-called-this-year progressive bifocal case hardened, (at higher extra cost than plastic just because they can, not because they cost more to make, the bastards. Remember whem plastic cost more than glass?).
Because the things I do with them on would scratch the shit out of and destroy plastic lenses in a matter of days.
Besides at the speed an airbag deploys is it really going to make a difference? the frame will get shoved into my face and the lenses into the eye sockets.
Fuckin' stupid thing to FORCE people to have in their cars if you ask me...

[Rooster]

Yeah, so what happened to the passenger side bags that you could key shut off? Can you even get those in a Dodge truck anymore? Seems that was about all you could get em on in the first place. I also believe that I should have the option of disabling the deployment mode, if they've gonna put em in there and make me pay for em, at least let me decide whether to use em for assured self destruction. Nothing I look forward to more than getting bashed in the face with a balloon that's going about 100mph in the other direction than I am!

Just outa curiousity, what's the legal ramification of putting an aftermarket steering wheel on a latemodel in California? I figure there oughta be some retarded law against it there if anywhere! I mean, the California legislature surely knows how importat and safe airbags are and does their best to protect you from yourselves!

[Deuce Rails]

[ QUOTE ]
Besides at the speed an airbag deploys is it really going to make a difference? the frame will get shoved into my face and the lenses into the eye sockets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stop it!

I think I'm going to start pulling fuses from my daily driver. Screw the airbags. And I'd like to disarm the ABS when it's snowing.

[DrJ]

[ QUOTE ]
...
Just outa curiousity, what's the legal ramification of putting an aftermarket steering wheel on a latemodel in California? I figure there oughta be some retarded law against it there if anywhere! I mean, the California legislature surely knows how importat and safe airbags are and does their best to protect you from yourselves!

[/ QUOTE ]

In spite of all the customs and hotrods in California, the vehicle code pretty much across the board, whereever the issue comes up, basically says it's against the law to change of modify any part of any car different from the way it came from the factory.
Read conservatively, a Midas "replacement" muffler is illegal.
You aren't allowed to "modify suspension" so lowering is illegal and lifts of airbags, forget it.
I had the misfortune at a local park and shine of parking next to a deuce coupe that was owned by a LOMITA cop....
With a mouth the size of his ego.
He proceeded to tell me that he spends his work day pulling over any car with "square mufflers" because he knows they are flowmasters and then askes the owner if the exhaust is modified and when the owner says no he pulls his "I'm really mad at you because you just lied to me" routine and writes the book on the car including altering smog equipment if it's a new enough car, for the modified exhaust or even got a non factory chrome aircleaner. (big fine if written like a gross violation)
All the while he drives this hotrod that breaks fender, smog (for the year of the SBC that's in it) exhaust, and headlight height laws, himself!
But of course, he is the law so he's above the law....

Then there's the insurance and court problem.
If you get hit and hurt and don't have the air bag your car is supposed to have the hitter's insurance is going to use anything they can to deny payment and most judges would take their gift in the back room (I don't trust anyone in any level of government) and deny you a new bumper and trunk because you modified the safety equipment on your car.
In their eyes that makes you an irresponsible person from the git-go so you probably caused the accident yourself.
I knew a guy years ago, before CA had a mandatory proof of insurance law, who was sitting at a light in his VW and got rear ended and the hitter's insurance went to court on his claim and the person that hit him claimed that he had BACKED UP and HIT THEM and the judge asked who his insurance company was and since he didn't have one he was deemed irresponsible and therefore most definitely lying about the incident and ended up losing his license and got his (impounded) car totaled out from under him and had to pay out of his pocket to fix the other persons car!
On top of it, this was in the 60's and the guy had long hair so he was seen as a "lying hippy" because of that too.
Last time I saw him he had spent his necessary years of riding the bus to have his record go dormant, got his license back and was a Postal Mail carrier, still with even longer hair.

Think about it. most new cars have about a square foot of tail light.
You put a '39 Ford tail light on anything other than a '38 or '39 Ford and someone hits you and claims they aren't at fault because they couldn't see your by the book illegal non-stock and too small tail lights, in California courts you'll lose every time.