Name: Surprising stats about child carseats
Uploaded: 2008-06-24T01:00:00Z
Duration: 18 min 44 s
Description: Steven Levitt shares data that shows car seats are no more effective than seatbelts in protecting kids from dying in cars. However, during the question and answer session, he makes one crucial caveat.

Steven Levitt: Surprising stats about child carseats

Surprising stats about child carseats

Steven Levitt shares data that shows car seats are no more effective than seatbelts in protecting kids from dying in cars. However, during the question and answer session, he makes one crucial caveat.

For children age two and older, decades of crash data reveal that car seats do not outperform standard seatbelts in preventing fatalities. In a national dataset spanning 30 years, fatality rates for car-seat users and those in lap-and-shoulder seatbelts were nearly identical. The costly and complex car seat industry persists, driven more by emotion and regulation than by solid evidence. Alternative, integrated safety designs could be both simpler and more effective, but public faith in complexity over simplicity remains strong.