Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Carseats

Yikes.

Here's Steven Leavitt saying he's got a study that says it's actually safer to put your kid over two in a seatbelt than it is to keep him in a car seat.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/07/levitt-replies-to-critical-letter.html

We just moved our kid (seven now) out of the car seat, because she finally got tall enough, according to the obsessively rigid criteria I had been following (given to me by one of my students who had done obsessive research for a second-semester paper on child-restraint systems, which is where I get most of my data on most things, obsessive students doing research), plus she has learned to buckle herself, by the way, so yay, so the point is all moot in our case, but still.

Lots of parents have lots of kids out there.

I'd really sort of like it if someone would do some actual research into this -- good research -- because it would be good to know, frankly, what we ought to be doing, seatbelts or booster seats. Instead of just guessing.

I'm thinking of that whole butter/marg thing. Remember?

Doctors telling us margarine was really, really better for us? So quit eating butter? So we all did? For years & years?

Then it turns out margarine is made with trans fatty-acids, nigh on the worst thing we could be putting into our mouths, and we ought to have been eating butter all along, and why didn't anyone know that?

Didn't do any research, that's why.

I want RESEARCH, damn it.

(Someone told me recently that I seem to have some anger issues. What do y'all think?)

1 comment:

zelda1 said...

Now they will put man and woman in an MRI machine to see how sex works as if we needed to know that after all these millions of years, duh! They will research the hell out of a new weapon, a new internet device, a new hair product, but don't you know, children are the least of all in this kingdom. No research for the little ones; after all, they are only little for how many years as opposed to how long they are grown. And what do children do for us anyway, it's not like they go and buy a lot of stuff and they can't vote or even blog so hell, they can't really matter, can they? grrrrrr those damn republicans make me weary. And I know it is the republicans because I can't think of a liberal anywhere who would not want mondy spent to research the safety of a child. PLEASE TELL ME I'M RIGHT ON THAT ONE!