We have had some concerns having Bryan in the loaner car from Michelle. One of the reasons is that the car is old enough that there’s no center seatbelt to strap Bryan’s car seat in. So we’ve had to put his booster seat right behind the driver side, right next to the window — one of the danger zones in today’s child safety standards in cars.
Originally I was thinking about getting a car in Canada when we finally make the move. That way, it’d save us the hassle of having to deal with customs and import taxes. But it turns out that Canadian cars, in our unscientific preliminary research are quite a bit more expensive than their counterparts here in the U.S. (that’s including the 6% import tax and all). So the decision has been made to resume looking for a decent used car here in California.
One of the nice things about the United States is that “things”, in general, are relatively cheap in comparison to other places though “cheap” in no way equates to quality. The downside, of course, is that capitalism looks out for investors, not the good of the general public at large. For example, Consumer Reports accuses child car seat manufacturers making inferior car seats that meet minimum standards (a jokingly low 30mph impact) in comparison to similar models in Europe. Though the news wasn’t a surprise to me, it was still sad that my skeptism was proven true. But that’s a different topic for a totally different post altogether.