Steven Levitt: Are children's carseats necessary?

http://www.ted.com Steven Levitt shares data that shows car seats are no more effective than seatbelts in protecting kids from dying in cars. However, during the Q&A, he makes one crucial caveat.

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[kokopelli314]

Its hard to change the beliefs of someone whose income is supported by those beliefs.

Steve Levitt made it quite clear that child car seats were an effective, but complicated and expensive solution for all children but not necessarily the best solution for the older age group. The point being made here is the divide between research and reason when irrational assumptions, fear and greed determine public policy.

[linjapanese77]

what i love bout this guys is that he doesnt claim to be smart... its all in the data, he always go back to the data and not some brilliant "idea"... i like that.

[lucyloorf]

But you didn't compare Extended Rear Facing childs car seats, they would out perform a seat belt by far!

[ElJefer]

Government fucks most things up.

[littlemas2]

I love this!! I have five kids, and I made this exact argument just yesterday. Now I have an economist who also agrees. In fact, I would suggest that by making the expensive and hard mandated, you actually cause a number of people not to use the solution at all. Therefore, you put more kids at risk by having kids not be buckled at all. On short trips sometimes my 3 year old does not get buckled at all because the time to buckle her doubles the length of the trip.

[crudhousefull]

@BJJMTF And you're a parent of how many kids?

[BJJMTF]

@crudhousefull I would

[DamionCrane]

SEX!!!!

[crudhousefull]

He killed himself in the end lol. No parent will take a 10% chance that their kid would get injured over saving money on a carseat if they can afford it

[Febeleh]

@blacka725 Ah, there I go again making assumptions without proper evidence. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I fully and completely understand the purpose of your comment now. In fact, it was actually pretty funny!

[blacka725]

@Febeleh Haha if you read the comment I was replying to it will become more clear that I was being sarcastic. I was trying to point out how pretentious Sleepypoodle sounded.

And you don't have to worry about me, I read plenty of books. Including Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics!

[Febeleh]

@blacka725 In my opinion you, and a ton of other people everywhere, should expand their goldfish-like attention span. If you can't read through a simple 500 character comment, something is wrong. Judging from the fact you can't read a YouTube comment without losing interest, I doubt you've ever read a decent book, or novel. Also, people need to stop this self inflicted ignorance, and try to learn something every once in a long while.