Child Car Seats: Unintended Consequences

Child Car Seats:

Unintended Consequences

I spent some time on the highway this weekend with an amazing number of poor drivers, most of them younger. After some small reflection on this phenomenon I had an epiphany. I know why there are so many younger poor drivers.

Child Car Seats!!!

Yes. The unintended consequence of child car seats is generation after generation of drivers with poor driving skills. (Work with me here.)

If you are a bit over 30, your first awareness of driving was riding in the front seat next to mom or dad watching them drive. You watched them shift gears, use the turn signals, use the brakes, and all the other activities for which drivers are responsible. On occasion, they would let you sit in their lap as they drove and let you pretend to drive. You watched what they did from infancy. By the time you were an early teenager there was one thought in your mind. “I cannot wait until I can be in the driver’s seat!” When that time came you were aware of what it took to be a driver. All you needed was someone to help you develop hands on skill.

If you are a bit under 30, your experience was very different. You never saw anyone drive a car for the first years of your life. Why? You were strapped into a child car seat looking the wrong way. When you graduated to a forward-facing seat it was no better. You were almost always strapped in the seat directly behind the driver. You could not see what they were doing even if you were interested. "No child under the age of 13 should sit in the front seat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." (Livestrong.com) So, by the time you were a teenager driving, for you (or most of you,) was an activity that someone else did for you. Being the driver was not a priority in your life. You did not really start thinking about all the activities involved in driving until you were closer to 16 and started taking professional driving lessons.

It is generally accepted that much learning takes place as a small child. Child car seats have denied generations of young people the opportunity to become better, safer drivers. We have traded child safety for danger on the streets and highways!

As we learn from Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” (Read Hazlitt here.)

As is frequently the case, failure to apply the lesson when passing legislation and regulations results in, wait for it...

Unintended Consequences.