Reply to Opinions on car seats on planes

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  I think my question is always about relative risk.  I understand there are risks, as there are in many things.  Not trying to talk myself and others out of buying an extra plane seat - not at all.  I just find it hard to[b] develop a sense of the relative risk to lap flights[/b], which is important to me.

For eg, I haven't been a big follower of all the rules in pregnancy - have had little bits of wine, sushi from reputable places, bit of coffee or chai a few times a week, etc.  I found it easy to determine the relative risk of those things (i.e. risk to my baby from a cup of chai on the way to work vs. the risk to my baby from the car ride that actually gets me to work).  With this plane thing, I have found this relative risk harder to gauge, and obviously the PP responses suggest that many have widely different views on how great these risks are.[/quote]

Relative risk of what, OP?  You talk about risk as if the fact you take some risks cancels out the others (example: risk of a cup of chai is not "versus" the risk of the car ride, it is [i]in addition to[/i] the risk of the car ride).  What you should be comparing is the risk of x as compared to the difficulty of not doing x.

There's no question that having your child in a car seat during an in-flight incident is safer: Google can show you plenty of children who lived or died on planes solely due to the presence or absence of a car seat.  If you can't or don't want to buy a seat for your child, the next question is whether you'll travel at all, and if you travel whether you'll drive or fly. Then the relative risk you compare is, flying without a car seat vs driving.  There's some evidence that flying without a car seat is safer than driving, because airplane incidents are low-frequency (although high-consequence) events.

I think what you're really asking is, "What are the chances my flight will experience a [survivable] crash, or turbulence causing me to lose hold of my lap child?" Which translates too, What are the chances I'll pay for a seat unnecessarily, versus not pay for one and regret it?  That answer is statistically knowable: probably an airline forum would have that info.  Before you look it up, though -- what level of risk would you be comfortable with?  If I could promise you that your flight had a 1 in 1000 chance of an event in which a car seat saves your child's life, what would you do?  What if it was 1 in a million?  Some people are fine with 1 in a million risks; others find they can't stomach it once there is a number attached.  If you're in the latter group, save your effort and [since you haven't mentioned that you can't afford it] just buy the seat.

Best of luck.[/quote]

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