3 kids in a Prius?

Hello,
This is my first time posting. I'm a KY mom of one and soon to be two from Haiti. (Ages 4,3,2). We are in the market for a car and I think I want a Prius. When I mention this to anyone, they think I'm insane. I have test driven an '08 and all three car seats fit in the back. Will it be inconvenient? Probably. But at 48 mpg, I feel obligated to buy a Prius. Can anyone talk me out of this?

 

The Graco Turbobooster received good ratings and is narrower than most.

I fit three (two Graco, one Britax Roundabout between them) in a Mazda Protege5, which is smaller in back than a Prius.

 

Where I live, the recommendation is that children travel in backward facing child seats up until about four years of age. (more information here: http://publikationswebbutik.vv.se/upload/2456/88917_safety_in_cars_oct.pdf )
This means that the passenger front seat can't be used due to the airbag which, if deployed, could kill the child sitting there. If you follow those guidelines there is no way to accommodate 3 children below four in a Prius.

 

here, you must travel backwards until 20 lbs or one year which ever comes last. my son, who will probably not be tall, is tall for his age and thin and to be honest with ya, he was squeezed in the rear facing seat by the time he graduated to forward facing (he will be 2 on april 5th) he was closer to 15 months by the time we turned him around.

he is now 34" and around 26 lbs

 

You can start by reading the pdf I linked to.

 

i have to agree, rear facing seats are too short to accommodate a child after they reach a certain height. my son, was tall, but not up to the 20 lb weight. so by the time we converted him to rear facing, he could barely fit even with all the adjustments maxed out. he was only around 15-16 months when we switched him

 

You being an ER physician has actually no weight at all when it comes to traffic safety, this is especially true when you claim that it's more dangerous to travel backwards. A small child has, compared to it's body, a very large head. During a crash, the impact throws the passenger forward and, if the person is facing forward, the seatbelt holds the torso in place while the head continues to travel forward. This means that the risk of neck injuries are a lot larger than if the child was facing backwards. I found a short clip that illustrates this.
http://www.folksam.se/polopoly_fs/1.10005%21/krockfilm_bilbarnstol.swf
The clip is from one of the largest insurance companys here, they do extensive research about safety in cars.
I'll see if i can dig up more information about forward vs backward facing child seats.

My son is 15 months old so his legs are too short to be a problem. My nephew is 3½ and his backward facing child seat is placed in the middle of the back seat allowing more leg room for him. My brother doesn't drive a Prius though.

 

We would all be better off in properly designed rear facing seats, but I don't suppose that idea will sell very well. Life is full of trade-offs.

Tom

 

my son is 23 months old. has been forward facing for probably 8 months now. his neck strength is more than adequate.

he spends a lot of his time, flipping over the back of the couch, flipping over me, flipping over the pillows (we have a couch with a bunch of pillows. his thing is piling them up. climbing to the top and then jumping off). but the point is, his neck is strong enough that he can literally do headstands, no problem. scary yes, but we are simply unable to prevent him from doing this.

but your concern is easy to understand. his head postion frequently makes me very nervous. in my Zenn, the seat does not lie back far enough in its normal position like the seat in the back of the Pri, so his head tends to fall forward when he is sleeping. The Pri seat does not seem to have that issue as much.

but there is no rear facing seat that would fit him any more. the one we had was maxed out and he still could not stretch his legs out and frequently would get mad because of it pushing on the seat back in his frustration and that is when he was 15 months old. plus after we turned him around, driving was much nicer because he can now see out the windows better and that kept him more entertained which allows Linds to ride up front with me. before, he would not ride in the back alone. cant imagine how he would react if he was 4

 

If you open up the hatch, there's a space under the back floor that you can use for one of them while they are small.

If they are REALLY small you can put one of them in the secret drawer in the front bottom of the center console.

If you're Brittney Spears you can drive with one of them on your lap.

 

You obviously need to watch your language and keep it on a civilized level.

In your line of work, you could be an expert of the anatomy of a human, but taking care of crash victims does not make you an expert on the anatomy of a crash. Did you watch the shockwave clip I linked to? That clip is from Folksam, one of the leading insurance companys in this country.

Report : VTI

Even an adult would benefit from facing backwards since it really doesn't matter what age you have, in a crash situation you won't have enough strength to keep your head from flying forwards.

In a crash, the car is slowing down very quickly. The cars' crumble zones make sure that the stop isn't instant. The passenger is now traveling faster than the car and us. If no seatbelts are used, the body will fly forward hitting anything in it's way. If seatbelts are used, the torso is kept fairly well in place while head, arms and legs are not held in place. The entire weight of the body are now restrained by the seat belt and concidering the g-force precent in a crash, the ammount of weight straining the seatbelts are alot higher than what your actual weight is.
If a backward facing child seat is used, not only does the head and arms not fly forward, the weight is distributed on a much larger area than what the seat belt straps are capable of.

Crash tests have shown that in a crash at 50 km/h (aprox 31 MPH) the strain on the neck of a child is around 50 Kg (110 pounds). In the same situation, but facing forward, the strain on the neck is 300-320 kg (661-705 pounds). These figures are from VTI whom are independent from any government, you can read more about them at About VTI : VTI

Yes, you are obviously missing that by placing the seat in the middle in the back seat the space between the front seats can be used to increase the legroom for the child. Also, the child seat is usually a bit higher than the back seat allowing the child to bend their knees.
Something like this:

 

I've often thought about rear-facing seats in cars and wondered why carmakers didn't make them (except for the new Town & Country with the swivel captain's chairs in the middle row). Seems to me rear passengers would probably be safer that way.

Back to the Prius, perhaps you could tether the third childseat rearward in the hatch area? You can even open up the hatchbox to give the child some leg room!

 

The thing is, crashing down from a couch is no way near the forces from a crash. Crashing at 50 km/h is roughly equivalent of falling from the 3rd floor.

Same clip as earlier but different host:
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: krockfilmbilbarnstol.swf