Swedish Car Seats: Continued

After posting about Swedish carseats yesterday, I came across this discussion from the NYtimes that happened pretty much the same time - with many people voicing their opinions very loudly about how terrible and unpractical it is to impose the new two year rearfacing carseat philosophy.

Motherlode - AAP recommendation

The article mentions Swedish car seats, so I thought I would post a little more information about them since I think they rock!

Here is a great video put out by an insurance company on the safety of Swedish carseats and rearfacing until 4-5 years old - notice how the older girls legs are not curled up, due to the difference in positioning of the carseat:

Many companies have developed car seats especially for Sweden -

I posted the one we have the Acta Graco, but there is also Britax and a few other models.

One of Sweden's aims is to eliminate all traffic deaths and have 0 traffic deaths for one year (and preferably more after that). You may think that sounds silly - but the idea as a goal has really been amazing to watch in practice. Last year only approx. 280 people lost their lives in traffic, all year, in the entire country.

In 2009 NO children with a rearfacing carseat died in Sweden (please remember that it is a recommendation not a law that children ride rearfacing until 4-5 so not all families do so).

There may be a lot of other reasons for the above statistics, but I don't think the carseats hurt.