Side Effects

In a post that is more cranky-old-man-wanting-his-flying-car, Phil Greenspun mentions some unintended consequences:

[...] the nanny state required parents to move kids to the back seat to save them from the big bad airbag (a previous mandate from the government). Due to consumers not exhibiting the perfect memories that government bureaucrats depended on, now "vehicle-related heat deaths far outnumber fatalities caused by airbag injuries" (car ride tends to put baby to sleep; parent forgets that out-of-sight baby is in the car).

This is like explaining that infants fly free on airplanes, because even if they have to fly in an adult's lap they are statistically safer than they would be buckled up in a car seat in the back of the family minivan, just because the minivan is far more likely to be in an accident when measured per passenger-mile-traveled.