I didn't want to hijack singledad's thread with a carseat comparison, so I'm starting one of my own. I've owned lots of models and installed them in at least five vehicles, and I'm not very impressed.
The South African ISOFIX looks like the U.S. LATCH system, according to the Wikipedia picture, but they show it under a removable cover. I've never seen a seat designed with a removable cover. My LATCH points are shoved about an inch and a half under the seat cushions, so you have to shove your hand in there and feel for it. It's not terribly hard to snap on, but to get it off, you have to shove your hand back in, twist, and then "help" it slide off with your finger. That's when it pinches.
I've had them installed at the fire station a few times, but it takes them just as long. It just seems like back seats should be more kid-friendly in the first place. I mean, that's basically what everyone uses them for. How many people actually haul three adults in the back of a sedan? I know most wouldn't even fit in the back seat of my car.
Come to think of it, it would be better if cars didn't come with pre-installed back seats at all. Have some kind of universal anchorage system where you can install any size seat you want. Maybe a row of three regular size back seats. Maybe two full-size adult seats instead. Or even a rear-facing bench, so everyone faces backwards (safer) and you can load them in from the hatchback. I don't know... it just seems redundant to have a seat designed for adults, which you have to secure another seat on top of - often with difficulty - and try to make fit. Not to mention that seat "designed for adults" is often too narrow front-to-back for any adults, and certainly too narrow for three.
I mean, most models of carseats won't fit three in a row in a typical compact car. Yet there are three seat belts. It's supposed to fit three passengers. And kids are small. It shouldn't be impossible to fit three of them in a row. Maybe they should make "double" and "triple" carseats, connected to save space right-to-left.
The other problem is front-to-back space. I had a "convertible" car seat for one my kids, which meant it could face forward or backward. But of course it was big, so it could fit a bigger kid. So the back stuck out so far when it was in a rear-facing position that it ran into the front seats. So you couldn't actually use it in the rear-facing position; you had to buy the smaller infant car seats that can't be installed forward-facing and won't accommodate a larger child. (So basically if you have a smaller vehicle, you can't utilize the convertible models. You have to buy two.) Something bolted directly to the floor, instead of strapped onto a pre-existing seat, would use less space.
It seems like every imaginable convenience has been manufactured for adults. It's like the people engineering things don't have kids or something!
Oh... and we shouldn't even need booster seats. If they are ready for an ordinary safety belt, it should be able to come down low enough to accommodate their shoulders! It's absurd to have to install a seat on top of a seat, simply because the shoulder strap (which is often already adjustable) isn't adjustable enough. The back seat is for kids! A problem I often have with booster seats is that the safety belt will "lock up" and I'm forced to feed it back in and pull it all out again. Well, if it's already looped through the shoulder strap hole in the booster, it's often too tight to get out in the first place. So I basically have to twist and yank the whole booster out. Once I had to uninstall the carseat next to it. Such a hassle! (As for that, it seems like there could at least be a "release" button on the safety belt.)
The South African ISOFIX looks like the U.S. LATCH system, according to the Wikipedia picture, but they show it under a removable cover. I've never seen a seat designed with a removable cover. My LATCH points are shoved about an inch and a half under the seat cushions, so you have to shove your hand in there and feel for it. It's not terribly hard to snap on, but to get it off, you have to shove your hand back in, twist, and then "help" it slide off with your finger. That's when it pinches.
I've had them installed at the fire station a few times, but it takes them just as long. It just seems like back seats should be more kid-friendly in the first place. I mean, that's basically what everyone uses them for. How many people actually haul three adults in the back of a sedan? I know most wouldn't even fit in the back seat of my car.
Come to think of it, it would be better if cars didn't come with pre-installed back seats at all. Have some kind of universal anchorage system where you can install any size seat you want. Maybe a row of three regular size back seats. Maybe two full-size adult seats instead. Or even a rear-facing bench, so everyone faces backwards (safer) and you can load them in from the hatchback. I don't know... it just seems redundant to have a seat designed for adults, which you have to secure another seat on top of - often with difficulty - and try to make fit. Not to mention that seat "designed for adults" is often too narrow front-to-back for any adults, and certainly too narrow for three.
I mean, most models of carseats won't fit three in a row in a typical compact car. Yet there are three seat belts. It's supposed to fit three passengers. And kids are small. It shouldn't be impossible to fit three of them in a row. Maybe they should make "double" and "triple" carseats, connected to save space right-to-left.
The other problem is front-to-back space. I had a "convertible" car seat for one my kids, which meant it could face forward or backward. But of course it was big, so it could fit a bigger kid. So the back stuck out so far when it was in a rear-facing position that it ran into the front seats. So you couldn't actually use it in the rear-facing position; you had to buy the smaller infant car seats that can't be installed forward-facing and won't accommodate a larger child. (So basically if you have a smaller vehicle, you can't utilize the convertible models. You have to buy two.) Something bolted directly to the floor, instead of strapped onto a pre-existing seat, would use less space.
It seems like every imaginable convenience has been manufactured for adults. It's like the people engineering things don't have kids or something!
Oh... and we shouldn't even need booster seats. If they are ready for an ordinary safety belt, it should be able to come down low enough to accommodate their shoulders! It's absurd to have to install a seat on top of a seat, simply because the shoulder strap (which is often already adjustable) isn't adjustable enough. The back seat is for kids! A problem I often have with booster seats is that the safety belt will "lock up" and I'm forced to feed it back in and pull it all out again. Well, if it's already looped through the shoulder strap hole in the booster, it's often too tight to get out in the first place. So I basically have to twist and yank the whole booster out. Once I had to uninstall the carseat next to it. Such a hassle! (As for that, it seems like there could at least be a "release" button on the safety belt.)
