Baby Seats
Published almost 4 years ago
Russell Coker wrote a post about the baby seat safety, so I figured I'm post up my two cents. First off, my wife and I just recently had our first child, and we got one of the travel systems - a stroller / infant car seat combination. It works great - we both have bases in our cars and can bring the baby in either one without too much trouble.
The base uses the LATCH system, which makes installing it pretty easy, and makes it secure. Russell mentions that the car seats aren't totally stable since the car seats they are installed upon are soft and have flex to them. He's right, so when we put ours in our cars, we actually sat down on top of them before latching them in, to compress the seat down. When the baby is in it, the seat is pushing up against the base, and it stays firmly situated. In a car accident, the forces can be much greater, so its hard for me to say whether it would make a big difference. I hope to never find out, but if I do, I hope it helps!
After the travel system, we're going to use a Britax car seat, which is more firmly installed in the vehicle.
A little off-topic, but I agree with Russell when he mentions that it is a good idea that vehicles become more modular. My guess is that they aren't because of the assembly line - Henry Ford's great contribution to the automotive industry. Nowadays, assembly lines are so sophisticated, they are able to adjust along the way. For example, Henry offered the Model T in any color, as long as it was black. Nowadays, you can get all sorts of customizations for your car, from the manufacturer or the aftermarket. I think it would be a great idea to take the LATCH concept a step further, and provide a mountable base option in cars which a seat could directly attach to.
Speaking of customizable cars, I like the spirit that Toyota has going with their Scion line - promoting the idea of a customizable car. It would be advantageous for drivers and efficiency aficionados like myself to be able to tinker with the inner workings of my car to make it get better gas mileage. Like your computer's power consumption, wouldn't it be nice to switch to low-power mode in your car? I believe that's possible on 4x4 vehicles to save gas, and its along the idea of an overdrive gear, but there are all different types of driving conditions and driver patterns. I'd like to be able to control what's going on.
Puttering around town, I wouldn't mind using 2 cylinders (gotta have four strokes, you know!), but on the highway or going up hills, I'd want all 4 cylinders. It would also be interesting if it were possible to alter the way your car uses its generated electricity, even if its not a hybrid.
When is linux going to come out with a car? :-)
