To think my brother's wife is a lunatic

[acornfed]

So far around the enforced family dinner table I've heard she thinks car seats are largely unnecessary and are a result of intense lobbying by the car seat manufacturers. She regularly will pull out her 1 year child from the car seat and feed them in the back seat..on the motorway..she seems very proud of this

She also dismisses the Health Visitor advising her about finger food as "middle class advice " due to the waste generated with food being thrown on the floor. Safe to say SIL is the epitome of "middle class", living in a very "middle class area" and undertaking a very "middle class" job. Weird.

acorn Is it possible your SIL is a Goady Fucker as far as HV/finger food goes and you're taking the bait? She may be getting a kick out of being oh so controversial.

Anyone who takes their baby out of a car seat on the motorway is a bad parent. If it was my sister in law I’d call the police and social services.

Although it is unlikely that there will be an accident, it isn’t that unusual, and the consequences if it did happen for a baby not in a seat would almost certainly be death and if not life changing injuries.

The risk assessment would be taking your baby on the motorway is dangerous, what can be put in place to minimise the risk, a car seat, does this make the risk acceptable, yes, is the risk acceptable without it, no.

Please, if the baby is crying drive to the next junction. Sit an adult in the back with the baby. If you can’t cope with a baby screaming and there isn’t another adult then don’t use the motorway, use a route where you can stop anywhere.

I don't get the "well it's amazing people survived" attitude. Yes, people did, but some didn't. There are far, far more cars on the road now than ever before.

Some children survived measles parties, going up chimneys and other shit that people would, rightly, find ridiculous now.

There is no circumstance I can really think of where you would HAVE TO take a baby out of a car seat on the motorway. A bout of crying while presumably using singing, music, patting etc until you can get to the services is not going to damage the baby, more than it flying through the windscreen should the driver have to slam on the brakes

I can't believe some people are arguing against the use of car seats. Yes the risk of a crash at any given time is tiny but the consequences are catastrophic. The risks of SIDS are tiny but I assume we're all following safe sleeping guidelines because the seriousness of what could happen surely makes it worthwhile following all the current advice.
Also there's not much that annoys me more than people saying oh we didn't have all this advice in our day and we were fine! You may have been fine but the total road deaths were much higher so lots of people weren't

My car is from 1986 and rear seatbelts weren’t fitted. The wearing of rear seatbelts law in 1989 only applied to cars already fitted with them. It’s only recently that the law has changed to say that all passengers in the back much wear seatbelts in every car.

I don't think you can compare stats from the 60's, 70's and 80's with now anyway. The number of cars and lorries on the motorway has shot up since then
Yes you can.

Even though the amount of traffic has massively increased, the number of deaths has dramatically fallen.

It wouldn't be fair to compare the statistics fairly if the traffic and deaths had increased.

I am old enough to have been in cars that only had a drivers seat belt fitted. Rear seat belts were rare.I remember 2 sisters who were killed in a car crash when I was a child. There were no seat belts and no car seats.
Car seats for children are legal because they are shown to make a real difference to death and serious injury rates.

There is no circumstance I can really think of where you would HAVE TO take a baby out of a car seat on the motorway.

Seizures, asthma, choking etc... I’ve luckily never experienced those with a baby but I have with toddlers.

No. No you can't, or not sensibly in the way a PP suggested.

Cars were different then; the roads were different then; the roads were far less busy then - it's comparing apples and pears to say, "well we all survived without car seats!"

I once stopped a parent leaving our children's centre with the child (few months old) not in a car seat, I lent them one and gave them a leaflet on car seat laws and a bit of 'advice'. I was shocked that anyone thinks that's OK. I know we didn't have them when I was a kid, but that's not the point.

I have phoned the police before when I saw a young child not just unrestrained in the back of a car, but being leant out of the window by an adult to look at the road on a 40mph road. So irresponsible.

The people saying "well we all survived our childhoods without all these safety measures" are spectacularly missing the point that the ones who didn't survive are far too dead to put their side of the story

Our society is now I think too focused on health and safety. But car seats are not an example of that.

Oooh look ReanimatedSGB has rocked up with a completely unexpected controversial opinion again

I just popped out to the local shops for some last-minute bits. Saw a couple get into the front seats of their Land Rover Discovery and plonk their 3 year old on the woman's lap in the front seat and drive off.

Seizures, asthma, choking etc... I’ve luckily never experienced those with a baby but I have with toddlers.

Which is why there are hard shoulders.

Original
Yes...?

The general advice for asthma attacks is to 1. help a child sit up straight, keep them calm (they really shouldn’t panick!) 2. help them take their puffs / count etc. 3. Call 999 if it gets worse, doesn’t get better after 10 puffs, things don’t seem right / you’re worried.

I’m not saying that you should just continue driving, of course not. But starting with treatment, preventing panick etc as soon as you spot the signs might potentially save someone’s life.

It’s never ok to take your baby out on the motor way! I heard of someone do that, then get in a minor crash, their child survived but got taken off them by social services because they had taken them out of the car seat so hadn’t been seen to be looking after them properly as that’s so dangerous