The grumpy thread

[Eddie Honda]

You haven't met my wife Eddie, She would be having kittens at that! Trouble is it's all drummed i to them that you must by new and it must be isofix and must be rear facing, but if i said otherwise and god forbit we had a accident where the little un got hurt because of it then I'd never live it down. Sometimes you just got to go with the flow for the quiet life!

I totally understand the situation you are in.

 

My Mrs. wasn't that happy about the GS, but then again, necessity of getting places while the silver Honda was immobilised made it happen.

 

She wouldn't be that happy with the lads on the bike. It'd only be on shortish runs anyway until I was happy with their behaviour - I don't know if I could be bothered getting the gear at the rate they grow at and I'd secretly be happy to go for compromise solution of a sidecar.

[Guest Hooli]

http://home.earthlink.net/~trospers/id3.html

Scroll down...

 

 

 

...Sidecar with childseat, she can't argue with that!

[dave21478]

Come on man, for curry or chinese or any other sloppy foods you shut the carrier bag handle under the glovebox lid so its stands up in the footwell and doesnt fall over. Motoring 101.

[Guest Hooli]

Come on man, for curry or chinese or any other sloppy foods you shut the carrier bag handle under the glovebox lid so its stands up in the footwell and doesnt fall over. Motoring 101.

 

 

When I had a Disco I used to hang the carrier bag on the transfer box knob, you could tell when you ordered too much - the weight engaged the difflock!

[trigger]

Thats the only thing about my wifes old K13 Micra that i liked, the hook which came down from the dash for your shopping, it was ideal for collecting the takeaway with.

[Cheggers]

My old 4wd Scenic had a "curry hook" inside the tailgate for securing shopping/ vindaloo. Possibly the greatest single development in motoring in the second half of the 20th century!!

 

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk

[Noel Tidybeard]

Thats the only thing about my wifes old K13 Micra that i liked, the hook which came down from the dash for your shopping, it was ideal for collecting the takeaway with.

 

no it wasnt for shopping it was a curry hook- i remember when they launched the frog faced micra and mentioned the curry hook

[Lacquer Peel]

This whole "risk adverse" thing has gone way too far IMHO. I was in a concrete building today... imagine an old WW2 type gun emplacement type place with metre thick reinforced ceiling..... I had to wear a hard hat......

Looking at all the new "rules" I am amazed any of us older folks are still here...

 

Thousands of people suffered serious and mortal injuries, particularly in the construction industry, pre-health and safety, I'm glad that isn't the case any more even if hi-vis and hard hats are a compulsory inconvenience.

[doobietoo]

Thousands of people suffered serious and mortal injuries, particularly in the construction industry, pre-health and safety, I'm glad that isn't the case any more even if hi-vis and hard hats are a compulsory inconvenience.

As always you completely miss the point... I did not say that Hi-vis and hard hats were a bad idea, I suggested that their enforced use in areas where they had no advantage was daft.... There are still deaths and serious injuries in the construction industry despite these modern "necessities" and I would suggest that almost all the reduction in deaths and injuries is due to increased training and awareness of the dangers not a plastic hat.

[Lacquer Peel]

Where do you draw the line as far as PPE goes? That's the problem.

There are far less deaths and serious injuries.

Hard hats save lives, but they are unnecessary where there's no risk of falling objects or debris, I agree.

[Lankytim]

I think much of it is insurance driven, no ppe, no payout.

[Cavcraft]

I work in probably the most H&S enforced PPE fanatic industry there is, and get almost suffocated by what can seem ridiculous 'laws'.

 

I wouldn't change any of it for a minute.

[Pillock]

It's easier to tell people "Wear a hard hat past this point" than watching where they go, saying "Well if you go beyond that marker you need a hard hat and high vis, but if you're over there you just need the high vis, and anywhere on floors 1 and 2 you need safety boots but on floor 3 you don't.

 

"Site rules: Hard hat, high vis and safety boots at all times" - doesn't that sound easier?

 

As for kiddy seats - it's a tough one as nobody in their right mind would knowingly scrimp on that stuff, but they do seem to concoct new things every few years. Interesting to see that rear facing is now thought of as safer, I'm sure not too many years ago front facing in the front seat was the thing to do. And I'm damn sure some of the prices are invented to test the theory of "how much will a parent pay before admitting their child's safety isn't worth that much?".... £400 lol, it's plastic and foam and a few straps, not a sodding robotic butler.

[cort16]

It seems Isofix only became mandatory in 2011 but it was available in some cars from the late 90's.

[DodgeRover]

Thousands of people suffered serious and mortal injuries, particularly in the construction industry, pre-health and safety, I'm glad that isn't the case any more even if hi-vis and hard hats are a compulsory inconvenience.

The point was there was no threat of falling debris/ nobody working overhead/ no low points hence a hard hat was a waste of time as well as a PITA.

[garbaldy]

Trigger If you think the child seat issue is a problem then your in for a big shock just wait till the wee un gets older and the peer pressure starts

[cort16]

The price thing is bonkers. Our first "travel system" was way over a grand. Also a lot of people want new only. Every tried selling baby stuff? You literally can't give it away.

[Louise2cv]

Well that's the other way they have got you, you're advised to only buy new because you don't know if a second hand chair has been in a collision situation.

 

These seats also have flipping expiry dates and guidance not to store them in direct sunlight, or areas where there are extremes of temperature... What like a car on a hot day?!

[AlabamaShrimp]

The point was there was no threat of falling debris/ nobody working overhead/ no low points hence a hard hat was a waste of time as well as a PITA.

You should have wored this

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This car seat lark sounds like a friggin nightmare. Do you get put in prison nowadays if you make your child sit on a wooden egg crate or whatever while driving? That's what I had in my dad's CF van. Upgraded to a wooly blanket & big cushion in his Chevanne though.

[Mr A Lawrence]

When I worked for a tyre company repairing mainly dumpers and jcbs and the like I had an argument with a guy on a site who insisted I wear a hard hat on a site that had its first clearance before the drains were dug in"

 

It was totally flat with no building work or trenches.

[chaseracer]

I've no idea why I know it, as I've never had kids & never will because I can't stand them.

 

Don't worry about it.  Ours will look after you.

[Lacquer Peel]

This car seat lark sounds like a friggin nightmare. Do you get put in prison nowadays if you make your child sit on a wooden egg crate or whatever while driving? That's what I had in my dad's CF van. Upgraded to a wooly blanket & big cushion in his Chevanne though.

We had the luxury of a bench in the back of my dad's Transporter crew cab, it wasn't bolted down so heavy braking could be fun.

[chaseracer]

Until we were 7 and 6, my sister and I used to rattle around in the back of a Mini van.  Then the Owd Giffer decided we deserved a (vinyl) seat and bought a fleet-spec Avenger 1500.  No rear belts, mind.

 

He still goes cold when he thinks about it.

[Louise2cv]

The thing is though you could say all this "we survived" stuff about lots of things.

 

Why bother with front seatbelts? Rear seatbelts? Motorcycle helmets?

 

The rear facing thing is because the muscle strength isn't developed enough in small children to prevent the head moving that far forward in a heavy head on crash (in a forward facing situation) that internal decapitation is a possibility.

 

All things weighed up, what are the chances of have that kind of accident? Pretty low... but "what if" is a big thing in the mind of a new parent.

 

Hopefully as the government pushes the rear facing age requirement further forward that these chairs will become more accessible. I would imagine the argument for them being more expensive is the extra stuff required to make it fit in the seat the "wrong way" (our Multi-tech had a prop and tether straps) and small demand but I'm not convinced.

 

ETA:

 

This is one of those rare areas where probably more regulation is needed. It shouldn't be this hard or confusing to safely transport a child. We have managed to make seatbelts pretty standardised equipment, why not carseats?

 

The variable of buckle stalk length, seatbelt length (Ford Focus tear belts are too short for the chair we have for example... a family hatchback has seatbelts that don't suit a child seat!?!), rear seat base slope, footwell cubby holes (for seats/bases with props) need sorting. A more standardised seat shape or a set of rules on rear seat design for car manufacturers or something? I don't know.

 

At the moment as parents we just have to weigh up what we can afford, how much we are educated about the options and how much time we can dedicate to investigating the options. And then hope the bastard thing that you have spent hours agonizing over fits in your bloody make/model of car.

[Craig the Princess]

I guess the car seat market is set up so you take your 1 SUV/MPV into Halfords/Mothercare/etc who fit the seat for you and it stays like that until they outgrow the seat.

 

For us it is a case of fitting the seats to 5 cars so far, working it how to fit the dog in so he can't luck the baby for the entire journey.

 

That said the first rear facing seat kept him safe in a small contact in the brown Metro so maybe they are a good thing.

[Cavcraft]

Completely agree, Louise. Just because we survived it it doesn't mean we should put our kids at risk.

[garbaldy]

Yes and when we survived it there where far less cars on the road to bump into.

[captain_70s]

If I was that concerned about the particular variety of child seat I'd be reconsidering the idea of strapping a kid into a 40 year old car in the first place. With the best will in the world any significant collision is going to convert the occupants into jam regardless of seatbelts or child seats.

 

I always drove the Doloshite safe in the knowledge that any crash was going to damage me considerably more than whatever I hit, especially as the driver's seatbelt in the 1300 doesn't even seem to lock properly, the aftermarket ones in the back are halfheartedly bolted through the rear parcel shelf with big washers and I imagine they'll probably just fly off in the event of an accident...

[gordonbennet]

You have to feel sorry for new parents who haven't got loadsa money, the cost of kitting out one small child is now frankly ridiculous, i daren't add up how much my son and his wife have spent on their two but they can afford it, car seats alone were a bloody scandalous price, yes rear facing for as long as possible, but before any of that you need a bloody great 7 seater to put all the gubbins in no wonder modern parents are up to their eyes in debt.

 

When he was 2/3/4 the lad used to come with me in the lorry, no isofix or even a seat belt as i recall in a Daf 2800 (and no limiters either) so an old Britax child seat was firmly roped to the passenger seat and he slept soundly most of the day.

 

Not saying my way was ideal, far from it they probably lock me up or i'd be hounded on social meejia as a pariah, but yes i do think things have gone a bit too far the other way instead.