Quote:
Originally Posted by traceface  All I know is, the fact that you aren't supposed to hand down carseats to someone else is a *huge* boon for the carseat manufacturing companies - everyone who has a child has to buy 2 or 3 of them, new.
I think it is Ok to hand them down if it's within the 6 years, and if it's a relative or close friend that you trust when they tell you it hasn't been in an accident
Of course the easy way around it would be to assign each carseat a number like the VIN number for cars (Vehicle Identification Number, right) so that it could be tracked which carseats have indeed been involved in accidents. And then only those are the ones that have been would be taken out of circulation/illegal to sell or give away. You could even have the insurance companies who are dealing w/ the car accident take the seat and destroy it/recycle the parts.
Very few carseats on the whole have been involved in accidents, so this would drastically reduce the number of carseats in landfills. But it would also reduce the number of carseats bought so a lot of companies would be against that.
don't you think I'm right to have this good idea?
maybe I'll start a non-profit and lobby for it... :grin
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i absolutely agree that its ok to accept a non expired car seat from a friend or relative that can assure you its not been in an accident.
i also think the VIN is a good idea.
the thing is that when insurance co's replace car seats, they do take the old seats (we just went through this earlier this year)...so those seats arent in circulation. the ones that are (potentially) have been in accidents where ppl didnt know to call the insurance co. and have the seat replaced (my ex was like that until i put my foot down and told him absolutely not to using that seat again). so those "minor" accidents that may have caused stress to the seat and were technically supposed to be replaced may still be in circulation w/o anyone knowing (b/c friend #1 didnt consider the accident major enough to affect the seat and then gave/sold it to a friend/relative/neighbor/stranger who later gave it to someone else, etc. etc.).
like mentioned below though, you dont have to purchase more than 2 seats usually.....my kids are so large at birth, they fit in the britax convertibles....so they have one of those seats until 65 lbs. At that point, they could legally go into a booster; however, i dont really look at whats legal....i look at whats safe and so i will purchase a Frontier, which has a 9 year expiration and converts to a booster....for us, then its a BV then a Frontier and thats it. Most ppl do know a friend with a bucket seat so if one wished, they could just borrow a bucket for a few months until their kid was ready for a convertible.
It's a "combo" seat I believe (combo of ff and booster...)
