Home > Full Speed Ahead > Archives > 2008 > July > 09 > Entry
Riding in the back
Seat belt and child safety seat laws may reduce the risk of injury, but they increase the risk of discomfort, especially when traveling long distances. So, much to the displeasure of my wife, I disregarded the laws and allowed my children a bit of freedom.
I put most of our luggage in a soft case on the rack above the car. In the back hatch, I packed in a cooler, two grocery bags of food, three satchels of electronics, reading and writing material and odds and ends, leaving enough room for a nice cubbyhole in which the girls could take turns lying and sitting and using the cooler top for a desk.
Many families before the advent of safety restrictions, including my own when I was growing up, employed similar tactics to help children through the miles and make the best use of tight space in the station wagon, thus reducing stressors triggered by such close quarters.
Doing so on this trip allowed two people spread out a bit in the back seat, which can accommodate three but can be uncomfortable nevertheless, especially for the person sitting in the middle, and even more so if one of the other two is sitting in a booster seat.
To clarify, we all were buckled up most of the time, particularly in cities where the traffic was heavy. But we likely broke the law a lot too.
Still, we made it back in one piece, just like my parents and I did back in the day. And the girls got to share the thrill I used get “riding in the back.”
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