Wow, that’s the first time I’ve seen those. I can see all kinds of reasons for not having them on carts.
All the same, I wish carts had straps for retaining the carts’ lower shelves in an elevated position. I have a long stride and large feet, so unless I execute my prevention plan, you can always hear me approaching because every step results in a clack-clack-clack. My prevention plan, of course, is to grab a produce bag and tie that shelf in a raised position, but I always get weird looks from the produce workers.
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts. I had no idea that the belts seem to be held in wide disregard.
The main safety function I see in them is that (when adjusted properly) they will prevent my 2 year old from trying to get out of the seat on her own and in the process fall out of the cart.
They definitely didn’t have them when I was a kid, but they did have them when my first was a baby twenty years ago.
But thank you, I appreciate seeing the matter from angles that I had not come up with on my own.
I think that’s exactly what they’re for, wellanuf. They’re to stop the kiddo from climbing out of the cart and falling while you’re looking for the best deal on bread.
Since so many of the clips were/are broken, I never bothered with them much. I took my Maya Wrap and threaded it through the bars and fastened it around the baby’s abdomen, instead. Never a worry about getting a cart with broken clips/missing straps and it’s as cleanable as any other piece of cloth in the laundry. Plus, it’s the baby’s familiar “restraint”, not a strange one to be fought against.
I hadn’t really noticed it, but now that I think about it, the belts are gone at several of the chains around here that had them formerly-- Kroger, Wal-Mart, Target-- including the store that I work at when we got new carts after our latest remodel. The new carts don’t even mention the use of belts. The only belts now are the ones on those that have the big plastic seat add-on.
Wal-Mart especially had been a proponent of them; they funded studies of their effectiveness and how to increase their use, rolled them out chain-wide in the 1990s, and even did pre-recorded PAs reminding parents to use them.
Like this one. And in my experience, they’re invariably hinged at the front, and rest on detentes at the rear, which is why I can tie them upright with a produce bag.
The Target near us quite recently acquired some (very nice) new plastic carts - they’re much lighter and easier to steer than their metal predecessors. They all have safety belts in the child seat.
Not that I care - we have never used them with our 2-year-old. Their benefit seemed dubious, at best - kind of like Qadgop the Mercotan suggests.
I would think if your cart was tipping over you wouldn’t want your child to go down with it. There are a lot of different scenarios, but I would think if the cart was falling I could grab the child, with the seatbelt still around the child’s lap that would complicate things.
