Child safety in cartoons
A week ago, Steven Levitt mentioned over in the Freakonomics weblog that the Power Rangers didn’t wear seat belts when their show first went on the air, but now they do. I’ve never seen the Power Rangers, but after reading this I realized that in the opening routine for The Simpsons, in the part where Maggie honks a horn just before the camera switches over to Marge doing the same thing, Maggie’s sitting up front. I thought children in child safety seats were supposed to be strapped into the back of the car?
Dan Keen Said,
August 16, 2006 @ 8:20 am
That’s a side effect of airbags. There’s little reason to not have a kid in the front seat if you have an old and busted station wagon like Marge Simpson
leeg Said,
August 16, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
Heh, Dan’s comment reminded me of a news item I saw not too long ago about fitting airbags to motorbikes - vaguely referenced in the last paragraph here. Anyway, now we’ve mitigated slightly the chance of dying in a motorbike impact, and all we had to do was fit an explosive charge to the fuel tank of your cycle. Hmmm. That does seem safe.