The Mythology That Has Arisen Around Car Seats

How Did the Belt Win from Freakonomics wends its way from the belt around our waists to the way we belt our kids into the car.

LEVITT: And what we found in the data was really remarkable. It just, it seemed like the benefit of a car seat, a children’s car seat, relative to a child wearing an adult seat belt, was minimal. Almost zero. So in our research, in terms of fatalities, car seats didn’t help at all. In terms of injuries, mostly relatively minor injuries, it seemed like car seats had a small advantage relative to adult seat belts. But compared to the mythology that has arisen around car seats in which people seem to think, wow, these are the greatest inventions ever, the facts and the mythology just didn’t seem to line up very well at all.

Fascinating that we just haven't looked into it, as the story reports. Read the transcript or get the link for the episode.