This is a car seat that was installed by someone who has installed 1,000 car seats, who knew exactly how to do it.

The car seat's moving all over the place.

And this crash would have been about a 450.

And also it turned out these bench seats are the very best way to install car seats.

So they just have these bench seats, and they strap the car seat and the seatbelt onto it.

And so this is a test that's very much rigged in favor of the car seat, OK? So, that kid in this crash fared very well.

Steven Levitt on child carseats

Having a flat back makes it much easier to install them.

And I think this gives you a good idea of why parents think car seats are so great. Look at the kid in the car seat.

And these, to me, are the analogy for the car seats.

If you put a child in a car seat, 18.2 percent of the children die.

I would like you to approve it for selling, then they would say, This is a fantastic new car seat, it works great.

Bear in mind there are two things about this.

So this car seat was actually an above average car seat from Consumer Reports, and did quite well.

It doesn't turn out to be the case when you look at seatbelts versus car seats.

And so if we look at recent crashes the whole data set is almost 30 years' worth of data you won't see it in the recent crashes. The new car seats are far, far better.

And the other thing you might argue is, Well, car seats have got a lot better over time.

But when you look at other types of crashes, like rear impact crashes, indeed, the car seats don't perform as well.

So here this is the car seat. Now watch two things watch how the head goes forward, and basically hits the knees and this is in the car seat and watch how the car seat flies around, in the rebound, up in the air.

The plane you came in, cars, the seats that you're sitting on.

But indeed, in recent crashes the lap and shoulder seatbelts, actually, are doing even better than the car seats.

And this seatbelt would have passed with flying colors into being approved as a car seat.

So, in some sense, what this is suggesting is that it's not just that people are setting up their car seats wrong, which is putting children at risk. It's just that, fundamentally, the car seats aren't doing much.

And this is, again, one of those assumptions the way car seats are an assumption that we've inherited in governments, and doors.

Even if they're right, it's not so clear that they're so cost effective.

So here's the crash. So these are timed at the same time, so you can see that it takes much longer with the car seat at rebound, it takes a lot longer but there's just a lot less movement for child who's in the seatbelt.

Steven Levitt shares data that shows car seats are no more effective than seatbelts in protecting kids from dying in cars. However, during the question and answer session, he makes one crucial caveat.

Mary placed her baby in a car seat for the flight.

One thing that's interesting if you look at frontal impact crashes when the car crashes, the front hits into something indeed, what you see is that the car seats look a little bit better.

Because you'll release this section of the roof and engage and fire the passenger ejector seat.

The six year old is in a car seat, and it turns out that looks terrible, but that's great. That's like a 400, OK?

They can be put in a glove compartment, OK.

In order to have the car seat approved, you need to pass certain federal standards, all of which involve slamming your car into a direct frontal crash.

But still, if you just took that data from that crash to the federal government, and said, I have invented a new car seat.

Hydrogen fuelled buses are more environmentally friendly than diesel buses.

Here's our new car It gets great gas mileage, it has leather seats, buy our car.

The whole thing was upholstered in leopard skin... and had one of those car phones, all goldplated.

And what you find is that the car seats and the lap and shoulder belts, when it comes to saving lives, fatalities look exactly identical.

And that's completely possible. And if that's the case, then I think we're stuck with conventional car seats for a long time to come.

Ejector seat?

Al My wife found a bird in the back seat of her car once.

The question is even if are there enough serious injuries to make these cost effective? It's kind of tricky.

But essentially, do something like this, which I don't know exactly how much it would cost to do, but there's no reason I could see why this should be much more expensive than a regular car seat.

And the free cure is adult seatbelts, and the expensive cure the 300 million dollar a year cure is child car seats.

Motor repair mechanics, bodywork, painting, etc.