Three car seats?

October 1st, 2020
cars, kids
I recently was linked to Car Seats as Contraception, which argues that car seat laws have led to parents choosing to have fewer children because "physical limitations of many cars precludes the use of three car seats in the back seat." Now, this is a correlational study, so I'm skeptical that this is a real effect, but the premise here is also strange. If the only way to have three children in your car was to buy a larger car, I see why that could be a major issue for a lot of people. On the other hand, buying a narrow car seat is pretty straightforward, and three narrow seats fit across the back of almost anything.

We have several Cosco seats that are 17" wide. They are one of the cheapest seats out there ($50), and they fit three-across in almost anything. Manufacturers publish "rear shoulder room" measurements for their cars, so roughly we're talking about cars with at least 51". Alternatively, if you're willing to spend 4x as much ($200, still small compared to the cost of a car or of raising a child) there are 16" seats which would only need 48" across the back. Small cars I checked:

  • Toyota Corolla: 52"
  • Honda Fit: 53"
  • Chevy Sonic: 53"
  • Ford Focus: 54"
  • Honda Civic: 55"
  • Kia Forte: 55"
  • Nissan Sentra: 55"
  • Hyundai Elantra: 55"
  • Subaru Impreza: 56"

Of these, I think we've put our seats three-across in both the Toyota Corolla and Honda Fit, the two smallest on the list, without issue. It's more annoying than just putting in two, but if you own your car (unlike us) you can leave them installed. There are tons of blog posts on this. This mild hassle doesn't seem like it could be large enough to cause a substantial shift in whether or when people choose to have a third child?

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong

Recent posts on blogs I like:

A Big Problem With The Going To Bed Book

One day my dad was reading this book called the "Going to Bed Book" to my sister Nora. The book is basically about a bunch of animals who are getting ready for bed on a boat. They go down the stairs, take a bath, hang their towels on the wall, find…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts September 18, 2023

Investing in boundaries with young kids

Putting in some work to get the behavior you want The post Investing in boundaries with young kids appeared first on Otherwise.

via Otherwise August 15, 2023

Self-driving car bets

This month I lost a bunch of bets. Back in early 2016 I bet at even odds that self-driving ride sharing would be available in 10 US cities by July 2023. Then I made similar bets a dozen times because everyone disagreed with me. The first deployment to pot…

via The sideways view July 29, 2023

more     (via openring)