Don’t understand. How did her rings get up on her face? Also, were her fingerbones crushed flat, then, as well?
-FrL-
My 8 year old is relatively large for his age so it’s just seatbelts in the back seat for him, but we routinely have parents give us their children’s booster seats when we take his fellow second graders somewhere. Yesterday we were on Ocean Drive in Newport, RI watching the big waves (it was awesome,btw) and passed a slow moving car. Why was it slow moving? The driver had his son, approximately our son’s age, in the seat with him! My husband asked me if I wanted to call it in, but I have to assume it had something to do with them watching the ocean too and it wasn’t a normal occurance. Pretty stupid though.
I wasn’t there, but I’d guess she reflexively covered her face just before impact.
You might find this interesting, there’s a whole forum dedicated to the subject.
That’s exactly what I am talking about. Here is a helpful hint. If the intructions don’t tell you how to put a carseat in foward facing, it is not meant to. I have seen this exact scererio at least three times. Not only are these seats (somehow) strapped in facing the wrong direction, but the children being put into them are inveriably much to large to be in such a seat.
I work in a store that sells carseats. The last one I saw, the woman came in to buy a carseat for her two year old that was almost forty pounds. As I was carrying her new carseat out to the car I saw the infantseat strapped in the backseat. There was no other carseat, and she had no other children with her. It had to be for him. I don’t even want to think about how she got the straps to fit him. This was, maybe, three months ago.
The following comments about rules and regulations applies to the US.
Can children be killed by an airbag? Absolutely.
Are many children killed by airbags now? No, but back in the early 1990s this was a real problem. When passenger airbags first came out, there were no warnings about children and front seats. Mommy wanted her child near her, so she would put the kid in the front seat. This put the child at risk particularly if the child was unrestrained. I recall that right after we came out with the 850 model in 1993 a child was killed in a fairly low speed accident here in the states. Turns out the child was unrestrained in the front passenger seat. The driver braked hard before the accident, and the child was thrown against the dash. When the bag deployed he was thrown backwards with great force. (I have heard that a rearward facing seat will be exposed to an 80G acceleration in a bag deployment. :eek: )
So in late 1993 or there about, a huge campaign to educate parents was introduced. Warning labels were placed all over new cars (front of dash, both sides of both sun visors, and sometimes the sides of the dash) plus warnings in the owner’s manual. The government also changed the criteria that the deploying bag had to fulfill, to allow for a de-powered bags. The government also required the development of smart airbags. Bags that would detect the presence of a child and turn themselves off in that case. These bags are available now in new cars. More on smart bags in a minute.
What about turning the airbag off? Cars that have a legal rear seat do not have airbag off switches, and require NHTSA approval to disconnect the passenger airbag. But wait, my pickup has a rear seat and an airbag off switch. Yes it has an upholstered area behind the front seat, but for legal purposes that is not a seat, it is a storage area. That means that there in are only two legal seats, and the car seat would have to (from a legal perspective) in the RF seat. Since having an airbag and a car seat is a bad idea, airbag off switches are required. Same with two seat sports cars such as a Corvette.
Why rearward facing seats for infants? Up till about the age of two a baby’s head can weigh as much as the rest of their body and their weak neck muscles cannot withstand crash forces. By about the age of 1 or so their neck muscles have gotten stronger, and their bodies larger so they can face forward in a seat.
So why booster seats? Why not just put the kid in the regular seat? Two reasons, first off seat belts are set up for adults, and the way a seat belt stops you is the nylon fibers stretch and slow you down over several inches of travel (note if you were in an accident, the seat belt you wore needs replacement) a child is not heavy enough to stretch the belt, and for them it is like hitting a wall. If the belt is across their stomach a real risk of internal injuries is present. I was told once by an insurance claims adjuster that ruptured spleens are very common in kids in auto accidents. So a booster seat put the kid up higher so the belt rides across their hips which is the strongest part of their bodies, and it also raises them up so that the shoulder belts rides across their shoulder, not across their nose. Do not allow the child to put the shoulder portion of the belt behind their head, this is a bad idea.
So what about smart bags? Systems are in place now to register if a car seat is installed in the front seat of the car, and also turn off the passenger airbag if an adult is not present. Some vehicles also de-power the airbags if the seat is at or near the front of its travel to compensate for small stature drivers and passengers. This coupled with multiple inflation levels makes for a very safe system.
So would you put your kid in the front seat of a car with smart bags? No. The rear seat is safer.
** NajaNivea** about the Freakonomics quote. Have you ever heard the term figures don’t lie, but liars can figure?
From this PDF
Twenty six divided by three is greater than five.
During the period of 1993-1996 passenger air bag equipped cars represented a very small portion of the total vehicle fleet in the US. More new cars with dual front airbags were being added to the fleet daily. If nothing had been done, way more than five deaths per year would be recorded. However a huge education campaign was conducted, along with some changes to the cars themselves. Now by the time the smart airbags with child sensing capabilities were sold the problem had pretty much fixed itself.
I would like a cite for this. I am in the industry and have never heard of such a thing. It almost sound ULish to me. I don’t doubt that a short driver could be killed, the smashed ring thing just does not make sense.
No offense or anything, but not by much. 26/3 = 8.666666667. Even rounding up (yes, all deaths are tragic), it’s not a number to get hysterical about in relation to, say, death by swimming pool.
First, be sure of your facts before you say anything. If, for example, you had jumped me for such a thing when my kids were that age, I would have politely invited you to step over by the truck, pointed at the switch on the dashboard that disables the passenger-side airbag, and showed you that it was in the “disabled” position.
Depending on my mood, I would have either let you walk away feeling like a moron, or told you in person that you were a moron.
NajaNivea I haven’t read Freakanomics, but I am familiar with this:
Selected Causes of Death, Ages 0-19, per 100,000 Population (2002)
Cause Number of Deaths
Natural 36,180
Perinatal Conditions 14,216
Congenital Anomalies 6,818
Neoplasms 2,530
Respiratory Disease 1,497
Circulatory Disease 1,759
Nervous System Disease 1,565
SIDS 2,295
Unintentional Injury 12,442
Motor Vehicle 7,981
Drowning 1,158
Fire/Burn 606
Poisoning 586
Suffocation/Strangulation 953
Firearm 167
Homicide 3,001
Firearm 1,856
Suicide 1,777
Firearm 828
Suffocation/Strangulation 708
Poisoning 129
from here
It doesn’t address front passenger seat statistics - I always thought (maybe it’s an urban legend?) that was the most dangerous seat to be in anyway, though.
Yes, but you also have to understand that by 1996 (date of the hearing) consumer education efforts were in full swing. I would love to see a list of the distribution of these deaths by year from 1993-1996. I would guess that they trended up until say late 1994 or early 1995 and started down again.
Again a very small part of the vehicle fleet had dual airbags during the years 1993-1996. This means that a relative small group of children had 26 deaths. The 26 deaths were not spread over all small children in the United States.
Going from less than five to almost nine means that they were off in their numbers by about 100%. I stand by my comment.
The fact that I was previously unaware of the fact that some cars now have airbags you can disable doesn’t make me a moron, just ignorant, and concerned for the safety of a child. The attitude of people like you is exactly the reason I will probably never so much as approach any stranger, even if their kid is playing in traffic. :mad: 
Good. People like us get very annoyed when do-gooders come along making incorrect assumptions before proceeding to offer “advice”.
People like me get very annoyed when we see children put in potential danger. Don’t ask me why I care, but I do. You don’t know that about the airbag either way, either. And if you read the TITLE of this thread, it was asking about how I might be polite, which you and your ilk are not concerned with, apparently.
In an ideal world, maybe I could have strolled up and said something along the lines of ‘Aren’t you worried about the airbag going off, with your child in the front seat?’ and the woman in question could have said ‘Oh, it’s disabled, but thanks for asking.’ Or possibly ‘Oh, I forgot about that. I’d better move him to the back seat.’ But no… this is the real world, and I’m positive I’d get ‘Mind your own business, nosy bitch.’
It makes me hate people. It really does.
In my opinion it’s none of your business. They’re not your children. Although there is a sense in which your concern is admirable, it’s not your responsibility to step in, unless you happen to be good friends with the parents and have reason to believe that they are unaware of the risks. In that situation you might mildly inquire if they know about the dangers, without appearing to accuse them of child neglect.
I believe there is an element of ego involved in any attempt to intrude into the business of strangers with the intent of protecting them from themselves. You may feel that you are only thinking of the children, but IMHO you would be better off to resist the temptation.
If you persist anyway, expect people to be offended. You may accomplish your stated goals if they consider your message after their anger has passed. But the possibility that they will be angry with you (sometimes justifiably, if, for example, they have switched off the airbag) is the price you must pay if you insist on following your impulse.
If you hold your tongue, console yourself with the fact that these particular children are very unlikely to be involved in an accident today. And if they are at some later date, you will never know about it. Weep, if you wish, for all the children who are lost in auto accidents. Set up a Web site to warn people of the dangers. Contribute to programs that spread the word. Tell all your friends.
But don’t accost strangers and accuse them of endangering their children because you believe you know better than they how to run their lives. It is offensive, and there is no polite way to do something offensive.
(I have done my best not to be offensive in this post, but if I have failed, I apologize.)
I think you stated the case very well. I couldn’t have done better myself. You’ve lived up to your username. (I think) 
In Spain children can’t travel in the front seat until age 10. It’s both a matter of size and of “the kid is less likely to grab Dad’s arm to show him something if they’re not sitting side by side”.
My mother touched my arm to point something on a store window a few months back, as I was looking for a parking spot. I stopped the car right there (there was nobody behind me) and told her if she did that she’d get sent to the back seat.
I’m guilty of butting in about an unrestrained child in the front seat.
I pulled up to a red light near work one afternoon and saw one of our 9 year old clients bouncing around in the front passenger seat, obviously had no seat belt on, and motioned for him to roll down his window. I told him he was too cute and too smart to have his face smashed in by the dashboard if his mama had to slam on the brakes and asked him to put a seat belt on. He grinned at me and snapped it on.
His mom looked a little embarrassed, so I told her about the time my daughter was in a wreck with my ex-husband and wound up flying from the front seat to being jammed on the rear seat floorboard when the car they were in rolled. The light turned green and that was the end of the conversation.
I doubt if I would have done that with a total stranger, but I wish I had the courage to. I suppose I should find comfort in the statistics quoted above that the odds are slim that he would have been hurt that day, but I remember the terror of waiting for my child at the emergency room and wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Here in the UK, ‘appropriate child restraints’ are necessary until the child is 135cm tall (typically arounnd age 10). Restraints for children of this size/age tend to consist of a rigid plastic or polystyrene booster cushion - designed to prevent the child from slipping underneath a standard adult seat belt during an impact (called ‘submarining’, apparently).
commasense I really liked the way you put that. XaMcQ, whether or not you can get away with butting in probably depends a lot on your intentions and how you communicate them.
If it’s your intention to say “I know how you’re supposed to live”, then yep, you probably WILL irritate people just as commasense described.
But if it’s your intention to say “It always scares me when I see kids in the front seat”, and your delivery of said message conveys your own fear (more like Adoptamom II’s experience), then what’s to offend?
So you’re more concerned that some stranger you’re likely never to see again might think you’re a moron and a busybody and make a face at you than you are for the welfare of a child?
Uh-huh. Well, then, you shouldn’t say anything. Ever. If your ego is more important than a child’s life, you’re not trying to get involved for the child’s sake; you want to be the hero, not save a kid.
Really, do you think people are going to thank you for stepping in and make them look like foolish bad parents? You don’t want to look foolish, why would they?
The answer is no, there’s no way to politely butt in. “Polite” is the antithesis of “butt in”. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it and take the risk anyway.