I was recently talking to my wife about cars.  Specifically we were talking about mini vans.  We have two kids and the faithful Labrador retriever to cart around and if we are ever to have a third we'll be out of room in our current car (Jeep Cherokee).  So sadly, we are talking about the practicality of a mini van.

In addition, my wife's sister  and her husband recently (last 6 months) had their third child.  They already have a mini van and it serves them well.

Now often the sisters get together and go to the zoo or a museum or sometimes even to their parents house for the day (45 minute drive) and up until the fifth one was born (between the two families) they all piled in my sister-in-law's mini van.  Now with the addition of the fifth child it's impossible and they now have to take two cars anywhere they go.

So... too much info?  Pointless?.... I am getting there.

So, why can't they all ride together in a mini-van?...... car seats.  Can't fit them all in one car.  There are two four year olds, a three year old, a two year old and a 6 month old.  All of them are riding in some form of a car seat, which makes it impossible to fit them all in the car.

Yet I remember my childhood with no car seats.  I remember all 6 of us piling into a sedan for a drive to our family's summer "cottage".  Three boys in the back, one between my mom and dad in the front (oh yeah no airbags either).

With government mandates of airbags and car seats, we now live in a society where large families are forced to either take two cars or drive large Suburban type vehicles.  Neither option seems to be practical nor does it seem to be "gas friendly" in this 4.00 per gallon of gasoline age we're living in.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not arguing the merits of car seats and airbags.  I am simply illustrating the point of unintended consequences from well intentioned politicians and bureaucrats.  They choices have effectively been taken out of the hands of families because someone in Washington D.C. knows better than us (or so they think).

I bring you back to an earlier post that showed a quote from C.S. Lewis.

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis