I’m fat, and more than willing to be Curly. Always with a quick smile and vapid gaze, that’s me.
I hereby nominate Diane as Shemp.
Shemp was without a doubt the worst stooge. (this is not counting “Curly Joe”, who i don’t even acknowledge as being a stooge!)
this thread needs to die now. i’m going to take it for a ride, unbuckled, for a few miles!
Brociflower? What the HELL is this?
Haven’t finished the thread; forgive me if this is redundant.
Yeah, you do that.
**
Yes, because most infants riding in cars were secured in their car seats!
You’ve twisted what was meant to be a reassuring statistic. The conclusion I draw from this is “Almost everyone nowadays is taking the simple precaution of securing their infant in a car seat while driving. This has reduced infant mortality to the degree that the risk of an infant strangling on a blanket or pajama cord, already small, now exceeds the unrelated risk of an infant dying in a car accident.”
How you interpreted this to mean “The odds of a car carrying an infant being involved in a devastating accident are much less than the odds of a blankets becoming frayed” is beyond me. The reason so few infants died car accidents 1999 is because the ones that were in car accidents that year were saved by their car seats. There was no decrease in the rate of accidents, just an increase in the rate of survival.
I don’t have a cite for this, so bear with me. In the Civil War, soldiers did not have helmets. Field hospitals saw few cases of head injuries (although they saw a lot of other injuries :(). In WWI, soldiers did have helmets. Many soldiers were brought into field hospitals with head injuries. Were more soldiers struck in the head in WWI than in the Civil War? Not necessarily. The increase in head-injury cases was due to the fact that more of the ones who were struck in the head survived with an injury, rather than being killed instantly.
I believe (though I don’t have a cite) that one’s own street is a high-risk area. People are (hopefully) attentive when pulling out of their driveway, but regard the street(s) before they get to the main road as a “neutral zone”; they don’t always get on the ball before they have to pull out into steady traffic. People returning to their homes may think “Whew, I’m home” and start fumbling for the garage remote as if the trip is over; it’s not.
You’ve gotten it backwards. The risk of death is decreased by keeping the child in the car seat for 100% of the trip, and increased by taking hir out for any percent. The risk of an accident (not its consequences) stays the same.
**
No, in both cases the potential risk is being in a car accident. If there is an accident, death would be the consequence if the child were not in a car seat, but almost certainly not if s/he were in one.
[nitpick]And there can be no consequence to death. Death is it.[/nitpick]
**
How is this related to your example? In your scenario above, you didn’t say anything about one parent staying home alone. Is the child in the car because they’re trying to get hir to sleep, or because the family needs something from Wal-Mart?
You seem to be comparing three possibilities: Rock baby to sleep in car—One parent stays home alone—One parent stays home with baby. Again, I don’t know how the second scenario figures in this, but, of scenarios 1 and 3, which one do you favor?
Parents who will sit with the kids in their laps…
And the seatbelt around both of them.
I just shudder when I think what will happen to the little kid in the middle, getting squished between the seatbelt and a 100lbs+ adult body.
Don’t these parents realize that when they do this, the seatbelt isn’t holding them in anymore, their child is?
PS: I see this on airplanes a lot as well. Makes me shiver…
sail - I have a big problem with your formula. It is not based on utility of result, merely on probability of result. You need to include some kind of function of outcome. This is a mathematical rendering of wring’s guilt if her child dies from her negligence. I would be very surprised if any sensible utility formula results in the non-carseat option being favorable. The function would have to be extremely convex (risk-averse) to reflect the extreme negativity associated with death vs. the relatively minor positive associated with letting the child out. It would probably also be discontinuous with a large step to further reflect this.
In short, I strongly suspect that you have no idea what you are talking about. Throwing around some formulae might impress some of the natives of your local bar but it doesn’t impress those for whom the calculations are a living.
As for Iamsocool, I suspect that he’s never worked with actual data in his life. He takes the low death figures from a world in which carseats are overwhelmingly used and tries to use them to demonstrate that carseats are not as necessary as naked babies.
If you’re going to try to use “FACTS” Iamso, I suggest you try to use relevant ones. Not ones that, as Rilchiam pointed out, actually support the opposite cause.
pan
I come to this thread late, but all I have to say is: have you ever been in even a minor fender bender?
I hit a parked car when I was doing only 28mph, and I hit my head against the steering column and was knocked out. A 12" record on the back seat hit the windscreen and shattered, and the battery contacts were ripped out of the battery. If I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, I’d have been hospitalised or worse.
I make all my passengers belt up, in the back or otherwise, and I even put my cat’s box behind a seat belt. If you don’t have your kid in a restraint when driving anywhere, you are barking fucking mental.
But hell, it’s your kid - do what you like.
“Pot Kettle Black.”
Cliche over-used again. Thanks, though. I feel kinda special now.
Whoops, and I also, in an admittedly half-assed way, apologized for posting in a way that made it look like I was flinging spittle at everyone. ("…Sorry about that.") You’re welcome to sneer down at me from your lofty height of near-perfection, though. I don’t mind.
It’s just the self-righteous wailing and gnashing of teeth that’s REALLY been my issue, but since all of you seem to think you’re being perfectly even-handed and reasonable, there’s not much point worrying about it…is there?
Oh, and I’m pretty sure no one’s paying attention any more when you tell them what they can and can’t say. I mean, you can keep pointing it out and everything, but I don’t think anyone’s listening any more.
A shame. I’ve always thought you were sorta cool.
Folks, our pro-take the baby out for just a minute or five, it’s okay posters have said it all themselves:
What this is all about is adult convenience, period, full stop, end of story. I prefer not to stop on a road trip, I prefer not to let the baby cry for the time it would take for me to get to a safe place to pull off of the road, I prefer to unnecessarily heighten the risk to my child for 2% of my 500 miles on the road with him instead of 0% of 1000 miles on the road with him, because I can twist my brain around that somehow being mathematically proven to be safer for him.
I have a dear friend who has figured out a way to breastfeed her infant son while he remains securely fastened in his carseat. (And she doesn’t have huge, bendable breasts, either.) She just worked out a method because there are times when it makes more sense to keep going rather than stop to nurse a cranky baby, and she knew one thing for certain – there was no way that her precious child, whom she fought for years to conceive, was ever riding unsecured. Ever.
We can continue this argument ad nauseum, and rjung and sail will not stop offering their backwards logic and excuse-making, because they are seeking to find any way in which they can cover their culpability in the decreased safety of their children. If they blather long enough, they figure, they’ll hit upon something that exonerates them.
Hint guys – it ain’t gonna happen. Just like all the excuses and explanations that you’d offer if something, God forbid, even happened to your little ones, would be but empty words. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, as the bard might put it.
They know that the car seat is the safest place for their babies while in the car. They know that taking their kids out of the car seat for even a few minutes is a risky idea. I pray, honestly, that neither ever experiences something which illustrates that in more than our somewhat heated words.
In the meantime, everybody, buckle up – yourselves, your kids, your killer grandpas, your pajama wearing babies, your dogs. (Yes, there are seatbelt devices for dogs, because they too will become missiles in a high speed collision.) Be safe.
Not… while she’s driving… :eek:
pan
Is there any other kind??? :o
Look, the point of NOT being even-handed and rational and cold-blooded and clinical is that we’re NOT discussing Actuarial Tables here, we’re discussing why one feels it’s A-O.K. to leave your baby of unspecific age free to become a misssile in your car.
That discussion is gonna engender some serious emotional response. I had one. Sorry it bent you outa shape. I also offered some information as to the reasoning, and proper uses of car seats. Sorry that wasn’t helpful either.
I am cool. That is, until I see someone behaving so disgustingly irresponsibly so as to place a child in mortal danger. Then, I guess I have to admit, I’m not cool in any way.
The people who can’t comprehend the simple concept that not restraining your kid properly is putting them at a higher risk of death are the same people who are really looking like clueless dumbasses in this thread.
Coincidink?
Yuk yuk.
Have any of you EVER heard of satire?
My complaint was, is and never veered from the attitudes of specific people who have replied to this OP. I have no issues with people expressing their opinions, advocating the use of car seats and seat belts or even applying a little peer pressure to make someone feel guilty about putting their child at a higher risk. I just don’t like it when certain people decide arbitrarily to demonize a segment of our population simply because it makes them feel superior.
I am recently divorced, no kids, but when I have nephews and neices in the car, they are buckled up. I myself ALWAYS wear a belt when in a vehicle.
Now, when presented with a satirical interpretation of readily available statistics - which weren’t cited in over 100 previous posts, I might add - I’m an ignorant asshole who should cease posting on these boards. Sorry guys and gals, I’m not to blame for your lack of perspective and decency. I will do as I will, regardless of the opinions of people that have obvious problems with reading comprehension - yet no trouble at all with judging another person/persons solely because they make differing choices.
My initial post was made because I felt bad for the people who were honestly trying to explain why their children wouldn’t be in the car seat. Fuckwads? Get a little friggin perspective. It could be argued that any number of this can kill a child/infant, but I wasn’t trying to hijack this thread, as others in here have. The OP was based on the premise that parents that fail to have their children in car seats are worthy of scorn and fury - much more so than parents who smoke or drink or travel to the Near East without innoculations.
To those who have remained tolerant and understanding, thank you for your forbearance. To those to mistakenly ripped at me and ceased once they understood what I was talking about - it’s easily understood how you can get caught up in the wave - no offence taken. And to the EMT who mistakenly took my “citizenship badged” comment completely out of context (it was intended to be a Boy Scout jibe), if it was mistaken - no problemo, it’s probably my fault for being obscure.
To the rest of you, enjoy your lives. I’m sure you zealous lack of compassion goes over real well with Madge at the PTA. Say hi to Ned Flanders for me.
Fuckwad.
See…I would interpret people caring about babies as being compassionate, but I guess that’s just me.
Whether or not Iamsocool is an ignorant asshole remains to be seen. Maybe if you try posting in some other thread for a change? OTOH, if you insist on continuing your attempt to defend the indefensible here, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
I don’t think anyone has stepped in here YET and said “child restraints in cars are safer than no child restraints in cars,” or “seat belts are bad.” However, a FEW people have said, “Wow, this thread is full of self-righteous rampant assholes,” and I have yet to see a successful refutation of THAT.
Nope, just a bunch of fucked up excuses and piss-poor meaningless number crunching in an attempt to justify laziness and irresponsibility as a parent.
I calls 'em as I see’s em. Guess that makes me a self-righteous rampant asshole but at least I can say that I’ve never scraped my baby off the road or tried to put their head back on straight when the airbag popped it loose.
::Goes to stand in the Self-Righteous Rampant Asshole line with Diane::