The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying alongside a baby on your lap, since the extra cost would average many parents would run instead. Since driving is far small harmless than flying, a ban would guide to additional deaths. I'd love to see additional of this "all things considered" thinking about bans.
In fact, one particular location anywhere I'd akin to see this thinking applied is neighboring to this rule: babywearing carriers on planes. When our babies were little, carriers were massively helpful in flying. The baby likes it, and your arms are free. But for takeoff and landing, the FAA requires you to obtain your baby out of the carrier and clasp them in your arms.
The regulation is that if an under-two is going to journey on a lap, they must not "occupy or use any restraining device," (14 CFR 121.311.b.1) and FAA guidance to parents is clear: "Baby carriers ...are not allowed to be used during dirt movement, take-off, or landing."
This goes rear to 1995, and if you appearance at the notice of projected rulemaking it says:
This notice proposes to retreat FAA endorsement for the use of booster seats and vest- and harness-type kid restraint systems in aircraft during takeoff, landing, and movement on the surface. ... The FAA believes that, during an airplane crash, the banned devices may put children in a possibly worse circumstance than the allowable alternatives.
This is according to their 1994 study, anywhere the FAA compared kid restraint options. They looked at "booster seats, onward facing carriers, aft facing carriers, a harness device, a belly belt, and passenger place lap belts." The "carriers" current are car seats; they didn't test babywearing carriers. I don't think that's a important flaw in the study, however, since I do anticipate babywearing carriers would have performed poorly. [1] The genuine issue is that they didn't test the most common alternative, holding the baby in your lap. So "may put children in a potentially worse circumstance than the allowable alternatives" seems clearly incorrect to me.
In the 1996 final rule [2] they conversation why they're making a distinct decision than the UK (CAA) and Europe (JAA, predates EASA), and they evade the obvious comparison. They say belly belts can be dangerous, acknowledge that lap-holding has risks, foretell parents volition buy a second seat, and afterward additionally say they don't desire to necessitate a second seat since group volition drive. This isn't entirely nuts, since it's imaginable that allowing belly belts would have caused several parents to choose them complete a second seat. It's beautiful improbable for the effects to balance out in fair this way, however, and I don't see any indication that they tried to do this balancing.
I anticipate that, if fairly evaluated, contemporary babywearing carriers would prove much safer than arms during turbulence, crashes, and evacuations. And I think this is apt adequate that if we're not going to do these tests we should default to not banning carriers. In 2024 there was a invoice proposing to do item like this (Rep Bill Posey's HR 8972), but it went to the aviation subcommittee and died without a vote.
I don't think the damage of the current regulation is extremely ample in the scheme of things: flying is extremely safe, equal for unrestrained lap infants. Most of the damage is likely the inconvenience of waking happily sleeping babies. Still, it bugs me as a apparent example of incoherent rulemaking. The FAA sensibly considered substitution behavior in deciding not to ban lap infants, but unsuccessful to balance it here.
[1] The closest item to a transporter they tested was a 'belly belt': "This strap is designed to be buckled about the child's abdomen and is secured to an adult's abdomen alongside the adult's safety strap by routing the safety strap through a small iteration of webbing sewn on the belly belt." They did not execute well: "In the test, these systems allowed the anthropomorphic test dummy to create serious communication alongside the rear of the place in the row in forefront of the test dummy. The kid additionally may be crushed by the onward bending motion of the grownup to whom the child is attached."
[2] Here's the section, if the PDF is difficult to burden or read:
CAA and JAA province that they permit the belly strap on the evidence that it provides a measure of safety to children and/or another passengers versus lap holding a child.
FAA Response: The FAA would like to emphasis that belly belts are not permitted under current regulations. Even if belly belts do provision some measure or protection, the CAMI study found that belly belts allowed the test dummy to create serious communication alongside the back of the place in the row in forefront of the test dummy and that a kid may be crushed by the onward bending motion of the grownup to whom the kid is attached. Consideration of revising this current ban is beyond the scope of the notice.
The JAA additionally stated that in a collision or severe air turbulence, parents are often unable to keep a lap-held kid in their arms.
FAA Response: As discussed earlier, the FAA has resolute that mandating child restraint devices could logic more deaths and injuries than it would prevent. However, the FAA does not encourage lap-holding children. The FAA expects, alongside its education campaign providing apparent direction on child restraint devices, parents will choose an approved device, fairly than lap holding their children, in command to provide the safest traveling environment for their children. The two members of the APCS Working Group submitted identical alphabet that discussed the need to command restraints for children. In addition, they stated that the FAA's argument that the additional disbursal to families caused by mandating kid restraint devices would power them to small safe road journey is invalid since the identical cost situation arises whenever the kid is 3 or 4 or 10 years old.
FAA Response: The APCS Working Group's disagreement is that the additional cost to families of mandating kid restraint devices is no additional of a deterrent to air travel than the cost of a ticket for a child of any age. However, the FAA notes that this disagreement does not take into document that ordinarily there is no charge for a lap-held child, whereas certificate holders extremely frequently do charge if a place is requested for this infant. Thus, many group would toggle to less safe automobile journey hence of mandating kid restraint use because unlike most rulemakings anywhere the compliance expenses are passed alongside to all travelers, mandatory use of child restraint would enforce compliance costs lone on families alongside infants.
