If you have a 5-7yo kid, what do you do about car seats/taxis when traveling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a pain to plan around. When we can't drive or rent a car, we take public transport or try to find a bus or something similar for tours and airport transport so we don't have to worry about it.

Why would a bus be safer?

Car seats aren't required on a bus. They are in a taxi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were in that range, we just didn't take vacations where taxis were the only option.
We drove ourselves (so we already had carseats/boosters in the car) or we flew with our car seats and rented a car.

Even if it was more expensive, that's what we did. Only you can decide how much money your child's life is worth, I guess.

What kind of car did you own/drive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a pain to plan around. When we can't drive or rent a car, we take public transport or try to find a bus or something similar for tours and airport transport so we don't have to worry about it.

Why would a bus be safer?

Car seats aren't required on a bus. They are in a taxi.

Agreed, but that’s not what I asked.

[Anonymous]

When my kids were that age we always risked it.

[Anonymous]

For me it's about frequency. If you travel often, and take cabs often, I'd have a booster solution (bubblebum or similar).

If once a year you're in a city and you'll have to take two 10 minute cab rides? I'd skip it.

[Anonymous]

It's all about risk assessment. My 6 yo rides in a high back booster in our car, and we still use the harness belt because it's just safer. We drive on freeways frequently and use it on long car trips and people drive horribly. It helps with peace of mind.

Toting around a high back booster while traveling is pretty miserable though, so we only travel with it if we're renting a car and will be installing it at the airport. Otherwise we bring a backless booster that is lightweight and use it for any ubers/taxis.

However, we did a weekend trip to NYC over the summer and left the booster at home because we were going to be on trains/metro for like 99% of all travel. We did wind up taking an Uber back to the hotel after dinner and DD didn't use anything. It was fine -- It was like 15 blocks going 15 mph in traffic. I don't think we took some unreasonable risk.

We also traveled without a booster to Europe this summer, but did not take any taxis -- areas with really great public transportation just kind of eliminate this need and it's so great. I highly recommend traveling based on availability of public transportation when you have kids who are still car seat age but capable of doing lots of walking. It is glorious to travel without a stroller or car seat. Truly liberating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a pain to plan around. When we can't drive or rent a car, we take public transport or try to find a bus or something similar for tours and airport transport so we don't have to worry about it.

Why would a bus be safer?

Car seats aren't required on a bus. They are in a taxi.

Doesn't meann it's safer- most buses have no seat belts at all!! A proper car seat in a car is by far the safest option.

[Anonymous]

Bubble bum for the 7 year old and Wayb Pico for the 4 year old (we use it on planes, too. One of the best gear purchases for us )

[Anonymous]

If I'm renting a car, I bring an inflatable bubble bum booster for my 8 year old (he was 7 when we last did this) and I brought the rideSafer vest for my 5 year old (then 4 year old) who was too small for the booster. Unfortunately, we found it was extremely cumbersome to install when you are quickly trying to get in/out of a cab and we gave up on that quickly for cab rides and had my younger child use the booster and my older child sit without one. I'm hoping the next time we fly and rent a car, we can use boosters for both

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were in that range, we just didn't take vacations where taxis were the only option.
We drove ourselves (so we already had carseats/boosters in the car) or we flew with our car seats and rented a car.

Even if it was more expensive, that's what we did. Only you can decide how much money your child's life is worth, I guess.

Oh just STFU. We all take calculated risked every single day.

the safety freaks on here are something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's such a pain to plan around. When we can't drive or rent a car, we take public transport or try to find a bus or something similar for tours and airport transport so we don't have to worry about it.

Why would a bus be safer?

Right?

Also I’m just sitting here thinking about all the people who have their ES aged kids ride the bus to school. No boosters there, those parents must be murderers.

[Anonymous]

I posted about a bubble bum earlier. We borrowed it off “buy nothing” so didn’t have to buy one.

Years ago we were visiting the DC area (not living there at the time) and had rented a car with a car seat but it broke down in the GW parkway on the way back to the airport. The rental company told us to ditch the car and hail a cab! Amazingly a cab happened to be on the parkway and slow enough to pick us up given the traffic jam we’d created. I was pregnant and we had a 3 year old. We had to ride in the cab with no car seat (it seemed more dangerous to stay in the heat on the shoulder of the parkway) but it was stressful.

[Anonymous]

Ride Safer travel vest and/or bubble bum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I'm renting a car, I bring an inflatable bubble bum booster for my 8 year old (he was 7 when we last did this) and I brought the rideSafer vest for my 5 year old (then 4 year old) who was too small for the booster. Unfortunately, we found it was extremely cumbersome to install when you are quickly trying to get in/out of a cab and we gave up on that quickly for cab rides and had my younger child use the booster and my older child sit without one. I'm hoping the next time we fly and rent a car, we can use boosters for both

It takes some practice but the trick is to either have the kid already in the vest if you're doing taxi/uber, OR to leave the vest attached to the seatbelt if you have a rental car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just buckle them in with the regular seatbelt.

Yes bc the seat belt will save their life.

Whereas the booster seat will do nothing.

The booster seat is worthless without the seatbelt. The seat belt is what saves a life not the booster seat.