Discussion
kambites said:
DoubleSix said:
But as mentioned previously I would explore the BeSafe range as it's a cut above in my opinion.
They're all far too physically big, from what I've seen. A car seat which wont fit in the car is of limited use. 
Good excuse for a new car??
DoubleSix said:
I would just prioritise rear facing and work back from there mate. As you know ISOFIX is largely about reducing installation error.
I don't actually think there's a single rear facing group-1 seat that will fit. Unfortunately it's very hard to tell because for some moronic reason manufacturers don't publish the dimensions of their seats. 
Adrian E said:
I size will be of little relevance unless you have a car with the correct anchorage approvals
Not strictly true though as many pre 2013 vehicles meet the iSize standards but aren't allowed to be classified as such. In addition iSize supports greater side impact protection in the seat design.Basically the current advice is anyone buying seats now should buy iSize, vehicle approved or not.
kambites said:
I don't actually think there's a single rear facing group-1 seat that will fit. Unfortunately it's very hard to tell because for some moronic reason manufacturers don't publish the dimensions of their seats.
Not surprised. Just get a cheap family vehicle and keep the Lotus for weekends. I had to get rid of my Cayman when the kids came as I realised what you are realising! Oh btw, the link i posted has specialist rear facing retailers you could visit who will let you try the seats for size in the car.
DoubleSix said:
Not surprised. Just get a cheap family vehicle and keep the Lotus for weekends. I had to get rid of my Cayman when the kids came as I realised what you are realising!
I'll just stick with a good forward facing seat. I'm not one of these parents who's gone into a hysterical "my child is THE most important thing in the world" sort of mind set. Everything is about balancing priorities especially given that it's unlikely I'll ever leave the local 20/30 zone with the child in the car. Edited by kambites on Wednesday 8th July 22:09
kambites said:
DoubleSix said:
Not surprised. Just get a cheap family vehicle and keep the Lotus for weekends. I had to get rid of my Cayman when the kids came as I realised what you are realising!
I'll just stick with a good forward facing seat. I'm not one of these parents who's gone into a hysterical "my child is THE most important thing in the world" sort of mind set. Everything is about balancing priorities especially given that it's unlikely I'll ever leave the local 20/30 zone with the child in the car. Edited by kambites on Wednesday 8th July 22:09
My daughter IS the most important thing in my world and cars have slipped waaaay down the list.
That's not a decision born out of fear or hysteria, just a change in priority that I'm very comfortable with.
DoubleSix said:
My daughter IS the most important thing in my world and cars have slipped waaaay down the list.
Oh so is mine, but not to the extent that I'll compromise other aspects of my life for something which has a tiny fraction of a percent chance of ever making any difference to anything and probably isn't the best way of achieving it anyway. If I was serious about compromising other things to improve her safety, I'd be pouring money into more advanced driver training for myself and my wife, not fancy car seats. If I was that serious about it, I'd simply never let her travel in a car.
kambites said:
DoubleSix said:
My daughter IS the most important thing in my world and cars have slipped waaaay down the list.
Oh so is mine, but not to the extent that I'll compromise other aspects of my life for something which has a tiny fraction of a percent chance of ever making any difference to anything and probably isn't the best way of achieving it anyway. If I was serious about compromising other things to improve her safety, I'd be pouring money into more advanced driver training for myself and my wife, not fancy car seats. If I was that serious about it, I'd simply never let her travel in a car.
I see the whole rear facing chair debate thing as at the "piss easy precaution" end of that scale. I think attitudes will shift a lot in the next decade or so to come in line with places like Sweden. A bit like attitudes have changed RE rear seat belts over the last decade or two.
In the mean time it's up to the individual.
DoubleSix said:
We do what you can for our kids on sliding scale of reasonableness don't we.
Indeed, and different understandings/beliefs of the relative impacts of different thing. There are a great many things I'd worry about long before the difference between a great car seat and a merely good one, many of which are completely ignored by most parents.There were less than 10 car occupants under the age of four years old killed in RTAs in the UK last year. I doubt that even puts it in the top 100 causes of death. Interestingly, the figures seem to actually rise dramatically for older children, I've no idea why that would be the case.
Edited by kambites on Wednesday 8th July 22:38
kambites said:
DoubleSix said:
We do what you can for our kids on sliding scale of reasonableness don't we.
Indeed, and different understandings/beliefs of the relative impacts of different thing. There are a great many things I'd worry about long before the difference between a great car seat and a merely good one, many of which are completely ignored by most parents. But I don't think about probability too much. If it's easy to do, I do it, is my personal approach however unlikely the event.
It's why I have CO2 detectors in my house and critical illness cover. I don't expect to use them but i'd be sorry if I needed then and they weren't. Anyway I digress somewhat...
kambites said:
There were less than 10 car occupants under the age of four years old killed in RTAs in the UK last year. I doubt that even puts it in the top 100 causes of death. Interestingly, the figures seem to actually rise dramatically for older children, I've no idea why that would be the case.
Physiology plays a huge part. Edited by kambites on Wednesday 8th July 22:38
DoubleSix said:
Adrian E said:
I size will be of little relevance unless you have a car with the correct anchorage approvals
Not strictly true though as many pre 2013 vehicles meet the iSize standards but aren't allowed to be classified as such. In addition iSize supports greater side impact protection in the seat design.Basically the current advice is anyone buying seats now should buy iSize, vehicle approved or not.
DoubleSix said:
But I don't think about probability too much. If it's easy to do, I do it, is my personal approach however unlikely the event.
I suspect that's quite natural, but I don't consider changing cars just so I can fit a different seat to be particularly "easy to do" and when it probably has a one in millions chance of making any difference, I'm even less likely to do it. The one that a worrying number of people forget, is quite how dangerous it is to carry anything dense and/or heavy in the boot in most cars. Seat backs are often not very strong; a rear facing seat is all very well but if a 1kg weight comes smashing through the rear seats at baby head height, I'd rather my child was facing forwards (obviously not much of a risk in my car because it would have to smash its way through the engine first
). You occasionally even see people driving around with obviously heavy things like books on the rear parcel shelf. As you say, it's human nature to irrationally focus on minor things whilst ignoring more significant ones. Hence the almost complete focus on a few particular things such as speed and alcohol consumption in the more general road safety campaigns.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 9th July 08:07
Adrian E said:
That genuinely surprises me - the i-size seats are bigger and heavier so unless you know by how much margin the anchorage points were over-engineered for Isofix approval you'd struggle to know what the additional seat weight, plus added weight of a heavier child in that seat, would do to the anchorage. Granted if you never crash you won't find out, but I'm aware some vehicles with Isofix were really marginal on anchorage strength. Original Mazda 2 springs to mind - Ford never offered it on the same platform as they didn't consider the structure strong enough.
The Isofix standard is meant to be specified in such a way as to be strong enough to take a combined seat and child weight of up to 30kg, although I'm not sure under what circumstances (obviously the more brutal the deceleration, the stronger the mount points need to be to cope with 30kg). In practice the seat clamping mechanism often seems to fail long before the mounts themselves. That is presumably more stringently specified for iSize seats?
Edited by kambites on Thursday 9th July 07:57
kambites said:
Adrian E said:
That genuinely surprises me - the i-size seats are bigger and heavier so unless you know by how much margin the anchorage points were over-engineered for Isofix approval you'd struggle to know what the additional seat weight, plus added weight of a heavier child in that seat, would do to the anchorage. Granted if you never crash you won't find out, but I'm aware some vehicles with Isofix were really marginal on anchorage strength. Original Mazda 2 springs to mind - Ford never offered it on the same platform as they didn't consider the structure strong enough.
The Isofix standard is meant to be specified in such a way as to be strong enough to take a combined seat and child weight of up to 30kg, although I'm not sure under what circumstances (obviously the more brutal the deceleration, the stronger the mount points need to be to cope with 30kg). In practice the seat clamping mechanism often seems to fail long before the mounts themselves. That is presumably more stringently specified for iSize seats?
Edited by kambites on Thursday 9th July 07:57
Whilst I've been happy in the past to use an Isofix CRS that isn't specifically approved for my vehicle, I would be a lot less comfortable installing an i-size in similar circumstances if I intended to use it up to the maximum weight limit of child+seat as the anchorages would not have been tested to those higher limits.
I doubt the OP is intending to buy an i-size seat anyway
Ref the fitting issue - I used to help out at fitting sessions organised during child safety week - it really is quite amazing that more kids aren't killed in accidents! The adult belt restrained seats were generally poorly fitted with far too much slack in the belt.
For infant carriers the Isofix gives such a stable platform it really is night and day better than having it rocking about with an adult belt wrapped round it
We've just moved our one-year-old son up from his first car seat into a new one, still rear-facing. Having done quite a bit of reading beforehand, as with most things in life, you get what you pay for with baby seats. We went for a Maxi-Cosi seat that confirms to the new i-Size regulations and so seems pretty much as safe as a car seat could be.
There is one downside, however - it's massive when rear-facing. It's in our Nissan Qashqai and, with the recommended fist-sized gap between it and the back of the front passenger seat, it's so far forward that I can barely get in it. I'm 5'11" and it's no good for anything other than a short trip, but luckily my wife can shoehorn herself in quite nicely, albeit she'd probably have no legs and have her head taken off by the airbag in the event of an accident. You'd need a LWB S-Class or something to fit one in with no worries for the front seats!
There is one downside, however - it's massive when rear-facing. It's in our Nissan Qashqai and, with the recommended fist-sized gap between it and the back of the front passenger seat, it's so far forward that I can barely get in it. I'm 5'11" and it's no good for anything other than a short trip, but luckily my wife can shoehorn herself in quite nicely, albeit she'd probably have no legs and have her head taken off by the airbag in the event of an accident. You'd need a LWB S-Class or something to fit one in with no worries for the front seats!
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