Comment by danhor
2 days ago
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead. Since driving is far less safe than flying, a ban would lead to more deaths. I'd love to see more of this "all things considered" thinking around bans.
In terms of CO2e, a familiy of 2 + a kid driving a car instead of flying results in quite a bit of less emissions. Depending on the assumed mortality per tonne CO2e, driving might lead to a lot less deaths.
This is of course quite unreliable data, but one example of just to say how "all things considered" is very hard and almost always still comes down to a judgement call.
Of course, not everything needs to be decided by the FAA. Sometimes they could let people make decisions for themselves.
Yes. This. We all - and especially parents - spend all day every day evaluating risks. The FAA does not need to decide for me the level of risk between holding a baby in my arms vs having it in a sling during take off and landing. That's very silly.
For real. For something like car seats, arguably the regulation was what we needed to get them adopted. This though, seems as necessary as government regulators deciding if I can babywear my child when walking down the street. The relative risks and benefits are impossible to fully compare with this issue, and the impact on other people is nil whether it's baby in lap or baby in carrier.