Car Seat Pet Peeves

[IADad]

Okay, this is my first new (topical) thread here....so I hope this goes okay.

As promised in my intrroduction thread, my pet peeve is when people use those snap in carriers and leave the handles up....actually my peeve is with the manufacturers that don't really make a big issue of it in their literature or tell you why it's dangerous.

My understanding is that the seat is supposed to act kind of like a turtle's shell and hinge at the lap belt so it cocoons the child against the seatback of the passenger seat....so if the handles are up, the seat carrier can't complete it's journey back to cocoon possition and stops at the impact of the handles, (which when you think about it would cause baby's head, which is traveling backward after the impact of a crash to come to an abrupt snapping stop....)

Anyway that's my peeve...feel free to comment, add yours or any other safety issue peeve...(I could gripe about the deputy sheriff who let his kids ride in the front seat...he's dad of kids at our daycare...so that made it really difficult to explain to my 7 yo why he still needed to be in the backseat.....

[Dadu2004]

Our resident car seat expert is Trina, she'll be able to address this for you.

[16th ave.]

i remember looking at the instructions with the ones we bought.
those things clearly state that the handle on any baby carrier/car seat for infants is supposed to be in the down position and not in the up position. i think there is even a "no" sign on the boxes and the seats themselves somewhere for this particular position..

[IADad]

Good, because there wasn't really any on ours. there was just one sentence in the instructions stating that the handles had to be down in the car....We probably wouldn't have know the seriousness of the issue if it hand't been for the cop who spoke at our brith and parenting class explaining it.

So, I understand why people don't know, and it doesn't help that people make and sell little toys to hang form the handles. I think people think they are doing a good thing by having toys available for their kids, you see the love as you pass by a car like this, and it's sad and scary that they have no concept for the danger.

I have out and out contempt for people who don't belt up their kids etc. or smoke in a car with kids, these people I just feel sorry and scared for.

[mom2many]

I can't remember ever seeing that anywhere, but I almost always had the handle down cause it was easier to rock the seat if they got fussy when it wasn't up, good to know for future reference.

Out here it is still legall for kids/adults to ride in the back of pick-ups, we live in farm country and it doesn't bother me so much when the kids are in the back and they are just inching forward on thier property, but what gets me are the people who are going 65 down the highway with a kid in the back who would normally have to be in a car seat of some sort, actually anyone back thier makes me cringe, but I have never figured out why it's ok for them to ride in the back with no form of restraint but not in the car. I have let our kids ride in the back once or twice but I drove so slow..it is just to scary.

[IADad]

I remember riding in the back of a truck either on the farm or even out on the gravel road, but the driver always executed extreme caution, it was known that this was a dangerous thing and we had to be sitting and our lmbs tucked in etc....we knew the rules, it didn't happen a lot and never on any kind of paved road or any road with any traffic at all.

Different times. I would only let a kid do that now on private property and under very controlled circumstances (i.e. slow speeds, no steep grades or inclines), there's always too much that can go wrong too fast.

I'm not sure what the law is here, you never see it on the roads so I assume it's illegal otherwise somebody'd be doin it.

[Xero]

I agree, that isn't safe at all and I don't remember reading anything about it in the instructions for Eli's infant car seat but I never left it up because I could just tell it didn't belong there.

Originally Posted by IADad

So, I understand why people don't know, and it doesn't help that people make and sell little toys to hang form the handles. I think people think they are doing a good thing by having toys available for their kids, you see the love as you pass by a car like this, and it's sad and scary that they have no concept for the danger.

Yeah the toys are decieving, but the actual use for those is in the instance of the seat being used as an infant carrier, say you were sitting at a restaurant with your tiny baby relaxing in his carrier/car seat it would be nice to have some little hanging toys for him to stare at/play with. The fact that many many people use those car seats as infant carriers (I did!!) is the reason why those toys exist. Some people just assume they're for the car too, when really that's not safe. That's really the problem. They need to make it clearer when selling those toys, on the package or something.

[Xero]

Oh, I forgot to mention that my biggest pet peave (among plenty of others) is when I see a child that is too small or too young to be facing forward, facing forward. I knew a guy with a 10 month old 13lb baby girl (tiny thing) that had her facing forward in her car seat. I wanted to ring his neck for being so stupid. I mean really, why use a car seat at all in that case? Dumb. Just because it's more convenient for a kid to be facing forward back there doesn't mean you should do it without considering the safety factors. I also always see babies with the clips down on their bellies, when it belongs on their chest at the armpits. That bugs me pretty bad too. I always have to remind BF to fix it on Eli.

Oh and strangely enough, I can't stand seeing a kid who is way to big to be in an infant car seat/carrier still in one. Drives me CRAZY when their feet are hanging off the edge or anything. I just want to be like "Stop being lazy and cheap, buy a convertable car seat and pick your kid up and put him on your hip when you go into the store. SERIOUSLY!!". D:

[16th ave.]

or how about when they're are not in a booster seat?? when it is clear they are still too small to be riding in a reg. seatbelt? or riding in the front seat? there is a reason for news articles and such about keeping the kids in these places and things and doing it correctly. seems like no matter how many times the information is put out there--people just selectively don't hear it. they don't want to deal with the crying the kid does or its more convient for them. is it gonna be more convienent for them when the kiddo is injured or worse????
emmy has already brought up riding in the front seat and so on. but we just tell her no, not 'til she's big enough and go on. since she's getting older it will be easier to explain the real reasons for it the next time she asks.

[Xero]

Yeah, I'll never understand why it's so hard for people to be safe. Booster seats are so cheap too.