If you own a tiny car like I do, and your rear bench only seats two, you may someday find yourself forced to trade up for a larger vehicle. In Europe, though, there is an alternative option: Simply turn your four-seater car into a six-seater with the help of a fascinating (but illegal in the U.S.) contraption called the “Multimac.”
I’m writing this short blog because, while at a press drive talking with a longtime Car and Driver editor, I realized that most people have no idea what a Multimac is. I, as a new father and owner of a small BMW i3, have become well acquainted with the device thanks to my daily BMW i3 YouTube video search.
Specifically, I have found myself watching Ben Wallace’s YouTube channel “Dadcars,” which mentioned the Multimac in its BMW i3 review, before noting that Wallace had actually installed a Multimac into his own Maserati, turning it into a six-seater. Here’s an entire video on that conversion:
And if you’re not interested in watching a video, here’s a screengrab of the installation:
As big a failure as the BMW i3 was in the U.S., it was and remains a hit in Europe, especially in the U.K., where even the machoest of people don’t drive huge pickup trucks like they do here, but rather tiny hatchbacks. For them, having to buy a new, harder-to-maneuver-in-the-city car just because they had a child (for example) doesn’t make a ton of sense, so a popular solution is to — instead of buying a car equipped with more seats — simply shrink the existing seats from adult-size to kid-size. That’s essentially what a Multimac does.
Multimacs are basically big aluminum frames covered in padding and fabric, with five-point belts offered for each seat. Here you can see the aluminum structure:
You can see the legs in that top photo; those, along with two straps that go from the existing seatbelt bolts into ratcheting mechanisms in the Multimac, are an important part of actually mounting this into a vehicle. The company recommends that one of its professionals install the device, going on to note on its website that ISOFIX points cannot be used and that installing the Multimac may require drilling through the car’s floors if the seatbelt mounts aren’t suitable:
The Multimac is held in place with two tether straps which are bolted to the floor of your car – usually using the existing seat belt buckle mounting points under the back seat.
(If those points do not exist or are not suitable, we have to drill the floor to create our own mounting points – we call this a Special Fitting)
ISOFIX points are not strong enough and must NOT be used.
You can also have tether straps fitted to multiple cars so you can move your Multimac between cars – you will require an additional fitting kit to do this as they are unique to each car.
You can see the tether straps attached to existing seatbelt mounts in the top photo above. In the center, you can see the old cushion placed back into place. And in the lowermost photo, you can see the Multimac being slid over top of the existing bench; those two straps will be fed into ratcheting mechanisms in the Multimac, and the legs of the Multimac will be lowered so they brace against the floorboard.
There are plenty of folks who have concerns about the safety of Multimacs, which come in 3-across and 4-across flavors. To that, Multimac replies on its website:
The Multimac undergoes rigorous crash testing at VTI in Sweden, a renowned institution recognised for pioneering child safety innovations such as the rear-facing seat, ISOFIX, and the Swedish Plus test. Since 2001, VTI has endorsed Multimac as an innovative and secure solution for accommodating 3 or 4 children in your car, affirming its safety and quality.
Additionally, the VCA (Vehicle Certification Agency), TRL (Transport Research Laboratory), the British Government, and the European Government have all played crucial roles in the development and global approval of Multimac for use in various countries, including the UK.
To ensure comprehensive safety, Multimac undergoes crash tests across 11 different child age and weight combinations, employing 28 dummies. This meticulous testing guarantees that Multimac provides maximum safety regardless of the specific age and weight configurations used.
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Here you can see some photos of Multimacs undergoing testing:
While searching for opinions on Multimacs, I found a comment from a Facebooker who is active in child seat groups and who claims that German’s equivalent to AAA, ADAC, had this to say about Multimac (Typically I don’t include comments from random sources, but this comment seemed fairly logical; also, I reached out to ADAC and will update this story when I hear back):
As a group we don’t really recommend the Multimac for a few reasons
1. It’s rear facing limit is 13kg, same as an infant carrier. After this children can only forward face2. There’s no side impact protection for children forward facing with the harness (and this could be a 13kg toddler!)3. The children on the outside have been placed closer to the door, which could be the point of impact in a collision.4. In some cases it might actually be cheaper to replace the car.
I had one of these, completely amazing bit of kit! It was expensive to buy but after we’d had it 7 years we sold it for pretty much what we paid for it. Given we didn’t have to buy a car with 2 rows of seat or a people carrier, it actually saved us loads verse la a bigger car AND a load of individual car seats that aren’t worth very much once you’ve finished with them.
I can see how these would be useful.
Even though there are clearly some compromises here, I would love one of these for my BMW i3 in case baby-Delmar has some friends come over. It won’t really solve the space problem when my in-laws come over, since they can’t fit into those tiny five-point harnesses, but none of that matters anyway because I can’t even buy a Multimac in North America. It’s not legal.
Multimac has a whole page titled “Why can’t I have a Multimac in Australia, USA or Canada?” It notes that, while the bench passes Europe’s ECE R129 “Uniform provisions concerning the approval of enhanced Child Restraint Systems used on board of motor vehicles (ECRS)” standard, it doesn’t pass U.S. standards:
So why isn’t this suitable for USA testing? One of the biggest issues with the American testing and test rigs is that they do not have a floor. This makes it impossible to test the Multimac, as the legs of the Multimac are a hugely important component of the design and the safety. All Multimacs have two legs at the front, which are height adjustable and sit tightly pressing to the floor of the car. They are crucial in the event of the crash. The support legs will deform and absorb energy; keeping the car seat fixed in place and preventing it from rotating, and are essential in ensuring the Multimac works whether there are 1,2,3 or 4 children sitting in it.
After reading the previous paragraph, you’re probably wondering how American child seats can be safe without the energy absorbing legs. As the American test rig doesn’t have a floor, their children’s car seats have to find their stability and security in different ways; favouring a top tether strap. The car seat laws in the USA require that the seats must pass the safety testing using only the lap belt, so the top tether strap is there to reduce the forward incursion, and hold the top part of the seat back. The top tether is a strap that attaches to a tether point in your car, which is usually located at the back of the back seats if you have a hatchback style car, or where the parcel shelf would be in saloon/sedan style cars. In Australia, they also favour a top tether anchorage system to hold the seat in place, however this specific version is unique to Australia, so will be slightly different to the laws, testing and tethering in the USA. Both solutions are safe and effective when used correctly.
So, will we be able to get the Multimac approved for use in America, Canada and Australia? How would we do that?
As a matter of fact, we faced a number of the same issues when we were initially gaining approval for use in the UK. The British test house is called BSI (British Standards Institution), AND their test rig also didn’t have a floor originally. When it became obvious that the energy absorbing legs were an essential part of the Multimac, we built a floor which was bolted onto the test rig before we did any of our tests. We finally passed our tests, with every combination of dummy loadings, but were then informed by BSI that we couldn’t be awarded approval, as the test rig had been modified. After asking why we had not been informed of this £50,000 and two years previously, our next steps were to work sequentially through their chain of authority, starting with the Vehicle Certification Agency, to the Department of Transport, then finally to the European Government who advised that we should instead work with VTI in Sweden. VTI, as stated earlier, is often known as the home of child safety, and their testing rig had a floor already built in, for testing the Extended Rear Facing Seats developed in Sweden, so was perfect for testing the Multimac.
When our testing at VTI proved that the Multimac was not only safe enough to be sold, but was in fact much safer than traditional child seats and enabled up to four children to be carried simultaneously in a normal car, VTI worked with us and helped us navigate the 190 page document that is ECE44-04, the current children’s car seat legislation, which is written for normal, single child seats, and gain full European approval.
Because Multimac is so unique, and the only one of its kind in the world, we needed someone like VTI, an advanced authority, who could see through the boundaries of the traditional legislation and help us gain authorisation for this revolutionary, ultra-safe child car seat. We now need someone within the legislators of America, Canada and Australia to help us gain approval. A way to get the ball rolling would be for the legislators in those countries to be made aware of the Multimac, the need for it and the existence of this ready-made solution.
The relevant U.S. child safety standard is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213 (FMVSS 213), titled “Child Restraint Systems.” Here’s a one-pager on FMVSS 213, courtesy of carseat.org:
I don’t know the full extent of how the Multimac fails to meet FMVSS, but the bit above about having to pass a 30 mph crash test with “vehicle lap belt or lower LATCH attachments only” seems like an obvious fail, as Multimac requires tying into seatbelt anchor locations instead of using existing belts.
So Multimac — a popular European method of turning a two-adult-seater into a four-child-seater instead of having to buy a bigger car — just isn’t going to be an option for me and my beloved i3. As I understand, Multimacs cannot even be imported. Alas, it’s not really as useful in the U.S., anyway, since gas is cheap, space is plentiful, and huge cars abound. At least Europe, where people drive small cars for many practical reasons, has the option.
All Images: Multimac Unless Otherwise Stated
Top graphic images: Multimac
This seat solves some problems, but probably creates more.
“He’s too close” “she’s breathing on me” “He won’t stop touching me”
For my kids I can’t put them far enough away in any car to keep them both happy. Im looking for something the Canyonaro that’s 2 lanes wide, and maybe thats just enough distance to keep these kids happy.
I’ve only got two brothers, and the three of us fitted in a normal three-seat bench, and that was still far too close for us.
The youngest was relegated to the middle seat, and if he fell asleep on one of us, we’d elbow him hard enough to make him lean on the other brother, who would elbow him back, and we’d play sibling-tennis until he woke up and started crying, then our parents would yell at us and….
Yep, fun times 🙂
Eventually my folks bought a three-row MPV, so we had to really stretch to punch each other.
“European,” “Europe”… concepts that confuse Americans.
This isn’t popular in Europe at all; I’d never heard of it, and of course, I’ve never seen it either.
And why isn’t it popular? Because European law sets a maximum number of occupants per vehicle. If your car only has two seats in the back, you can be sure that carrying four children in the rear seats and two adults in front is breaking the law.
I don’t know if it works differently in the UK. I doubt it.
So, if your car is approved for 4 and you put 4 children in the back, there won’t be any seats left for a driver. If the car is approved for 5 and you put 4 children in the back, and there are two adults, you’ll have to find an alternative transport for that 6th person.
This thing is unusable.
I’m in the UK (and also Europe). My GT86 is a 4 occupant car, as was my wife’s Suzuki Swift. More seats would definitely be unusable, and uninsurable.
Also you can buy a 7-seat Vauxhall Zafira or something for a couple of grand.
A friend had one of these because three separate kidseats on the backbench did not fit (he had a prius wagon). So yes, I believe the max number of passengers stays the same, but it solves a very real problem if you need (not ‘want’) to haul three toddlers.
This will not work in my region (Belgium and I suppose The Netherlands and France as well).
The car is certified for a certain number of occupants and is insured accordingly. Additional occupants = loss of insurance and conformity of the car = big issue in case of an accident.
Driving without insurance is also a big no.
In theory the car needs to be re-certified according to local law if you install this – and this needs to be announced to the insurance company as well.
“Lucky Europeans”
I dunno about that, chief.
Sure. And they all carry apples on their heads.
So then put the 4 (or 2 double wide) strollers and diaper bags and snacks etc… on the roof? The adults luggage in the back behind the seats to stay out of the damp euro weather? Ok it can work.
Seems doable, I can’t imagine trying to load the little shits in the 2 middle seats. Would be challenging for most folks.
I get it for Europe however. They don’t have the luxuries we have here as far as vehicle space, cheap gas, lower taxes, etc that make this simple here.
When we had our kid in 2014- only have one- I picked up a clean 05 Escalade ESV with 4 buckets and a 3 row back seat.
Made hauling me, my brother, the wives, and 3 kids and all our stuff easy as pie in comfort. Strollers, bags, luggage, a wagon, cooler all fit fine.
We simply don’t have to accept the concessions here in the states.
All the European expats that live here in USA that I work with are fond of adopting the similar solutions and thoroughly enjoy the fruits of US vehicular size – whether it’s for the child transport solutions or not.
It makes sense because generally, concessions are exactly that. Not the ideal.
Sounds like you’re speaking for a lot of Europeans without really understanding their culture.
Yes, Europe is much much older civilization than the US, so yes, their cities are more compressed, and in comparison, the US is a vast country with lots of open space. Many people, Europeans and otherwise, even if given the opportunity, simply do not want to drive a lumbering gas-sucking behemoth, because they dislike road tanks and their road manners, and see them as grotesquely wasteful. Although there are compromises, Multimac is viable alternative to upgrading to a larger vehicle that is more expensive to buy and run, and not desirable for other reasons.
I’m European, and I’ve have lived in the U.S. on and off for 3/4 of my existence, and despite ‘having lower taxes’, however that’s relevant, have never had a desire for anything bigger than a Saab 9-3 or a Honda Element.
As a side note, I simply don’t understand the American default to going from a Honda Civic to a Suburban as soon as they have a tiny human. The strollers rival a small golf cart in size, and the sheer amount of gear many parents carry with them staggering.
“ Sounds like you’re speaking for a lot of Europeans without really understanding their culture.”
Not trying to ruffle any feathers here, I’m only going off of what I have seen.These euro guys seem to enjoy the big American vehicles and houses as well.
If the Element and 9-3 are good for you then that’s good. Like you said it’s your desire. I respect that.
The ESV really was a treat and was worth the 18mpg and is not that big though. Effortless through the mountains and great V8 sounds.
The LQ9 and 4L65 are a solid combo.
I thought the same thing about Europe and vehicle sizes until CUV sales took off and now I think it’s mainly the infrastructure and cost that limits many of them buying even larger and the complaints about dynamics was always oddball enthusiast talk, people sticking by what they’re used to, or people whose impressions are from ’70s land yacht stereotypes. Whether cars, real estate, or airplane seats, it seems that most people tend to prefer space when they have the choice, which can possibly be explained by evolutionary pressures (we’re not herd animals and cramped spaces has meant disease transmission that killed hundreds of millions over the millennia). I’m saying this as a New Englander who dailies a GR86 and the biggest car I’ve owned (going by interior volume) is a ’90 Legacy wagon which is about the same footprint area as the ’86, so I’m not a big vehicle person who feels they need to defend their choices.
Happily childless, I’ve got mixed feelings about the uber-large vehicles favored by many Americans, including those with and without kids. I think of myself as a small car person having had many, and having enjoyed their various charms. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that as I’ve gotten older, I place a stronger emphasis on safety, particularly in the event of that cataclysmic accident that I hope never happens. Thus, while my Miata provides smiles, I tend to put more miles on my 22-year-old XC90 simply because it feels so much more substantial. I do this even though I rarely fill it up with people and/or stuff like I used to: me and one medium-sized dog fit in a Miata, but being in a big old Volvo provides peace of mind.
Always worth remembering when you meet people who have chosen to emigrate from somewhere else: They’re not always that representative of their original home country which is why they chose to leave.
If I went by all the Americans I’ve met in the UK, I’d assume that the US was 99% Democrat leaning, because those are the sort of people that think moving to the UK might be a good idea. Presumably the “USA NUMBER 1”-types wouldn’t ever consider moving abroad.
That’s a very good point you make.
Makes me think of Rosie Odonnel and Ellen who left US. LOL- so yeah, good call out.
Please don’t let the Airline Industry know about this
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Inflexible regulation and testing rules?
The man in the Multimac said you gotta go back
You know they didn’t even give us a chance
Traveling with kids sitting that close together seems like a prompt for lots of threats of turning the car around.
Especially if they start looking out of each other’s windows
Even if I hadn’t been a kid and remembered how we were, traveling with kids is plenty enough of a reason to turn one off of having them. The modern electronic pacification still doesn’t prevent them from being a nightmare. The normal cramped kid seats probably don’t help, either, and these look worse. These seats look like something an engineer who had no experience with kids (or not more than one) would come up with.
I thought this was going to be about obese children..
I appreciated the article. I had no idea such a thing was a thing over there. Passable solution for city car use.
The sight of that thing in my rearview mirror would have me seeking the nearest bridge abutment at a high rate of speed.
Diono makes car seats that will fit 3 across for most cars, which is nice, because most car seats in the USA are so oversized that you can’t put them right next to each other.
Side impact rating of no.
The US uses space as much as anything, and this provides none. Imagine your car is driven though by a f150 and your kid is nailed in place by this aluminum thing compared to a normal child seat that is farther from the engine and has more protecting the kid.
So ban the F150, it after all is why there would be an issue.
It is the only correct choice.
Simples. Europeans measure their kids in kilograms. We use kilotons.
Kidograms
I knew the metric system must be to blame!
Or if you’re into less hassle and saving money, consider contraception.
I got a vasectomy after #2 was born just to avoid needing anything like this. There are ways to go three wide with car seats in most vehicles, but many prefer to just get a vehicle with a third row.
The three biggest milestones in my journey of parenthood have been:
Could not agree more. I have two more milestones to reach:
If Multimatic made a Multimac, would it be made of the finest carbon fibre?
I looked up NC’s child passenger safety law and found out there’s a pretty interesting exception:
https://www.buckleupnc.org/laws/child-passenger-safety-law-summary/
So you can just keep your hatchback and have the extra kids ride on the floor. Actually, now that I think about it, this seems to imply I could get a Corvette or Miata and just have the kids ride in the front passenger’s lap. Or the trunk. Or maybe on the roof??
And if Jason’s kid is driving, would that count as a school bus?
Just remove all but the driver’s seat, and pile a couple dozen kids in the remaining open space like luggage – instant, cheap, easy to drive school bus indeed.
All of us Gen-Xers know that a dozen or more kids can fit in the back of a Plywood Pleasure Palace American wagon (and on occasion, that many teens). Most of us survived the experience. Though had I been able to roll down the back window from back there, I may well have chucked my idiot brother out on several occasions.
Or died from the carbon monoxide.
I would have rolled it right back up again, I am not an animal. 🙂
If you were really stylist, your dad would have a pickup (with a cap) and some carpet down so you could play football in the back. My dad even had the sliding windows on the cap and back window of the truck so he or my mom could hand us back bandaids and snacks from the cab.
Nay, he was into 2dr personal luxury cars. But I rode in the back of pickups MANY times when I was a kid. I recall in particular about a dozen of us from the neighborhood riding in the bed to go see Star Wars when it was released. But a cap? Surely you jest – freezing in the open bed of a pickup in New England builds character. Still not very warm at 10pm on a May night in Maine. The theatre wasn’t far, maybe 5 miles.
Also a bunch of us crammed in the back of a friend’s mother’s Volvo 240 wagon to go to Pizza Hut and then see Runaway with Tom Selleck for his birthday in high school. Not near as spacious as a Plywood Pleasure Palace though, so maybe 6-7 guys plus his Mom driving.
That poor Volvo lived a HARD life once he and his sisters got licenses, crashed by each of them at least once, Mom drove it into the garage with all the family bikes on it, and eventually a huge tree limb fell on it in the driveway and put it out of it’s misery, LOL.
Fun little trip down memory lane!
Our drivein theater charged per customer, not per car. So, we had a big blanket and a pile of crap in the back. Pay for two, bring in 6-7.
I actually never went to a drive-in until I was in my 30s! And I think I have been to twice ever. I feel like I missed out.
I came from a family of six kids, and our family car was a 12 passenger van with front captain’s chairs and 3 rows of benches in a 3-3-4 arrangement.
For long trips my dad would pull the first bench out, lay down some blankets, then let us “move about the cabin” once we were on the highway as if we were at cruising altitude in a plane.
I remember running errands as a family in my dad’s old pickup with a bench seat – booster seat in the middle, car seat on the end, and my mom sitting on the floor in the passenger footwell. That obviously no longer worked when kid #3 came along
We had a family of 5 and a bench seat pickup. Dad put a cap on the back for safety and put down carpet in the back. The 3 kids and 2 dogs could be in the back doing whatever (well hide and sneak didn’t work well) and sometimes being loud and mom and dad could have piece and quiet.
My favorite aunt, who has three kids, always swore if she had a little more money she would have bought a used limo with a partition and put all us kids in the back so she could have some peace and quiet!
You sure those aren’t the same seats used at Disney’s Tower of Terror?
They look like it.
As far as personal hellscapes go, near the top of my list is being inside a car with 4 people small enough to fit into those seats.
It’s different in Europe. Decades ago, I had a friend take me and his wife on what he called a long trip to see a castle in Germany. With 3 adults (all over 5’8″) in a small car (even by European standards), the drive seemed to take forever.
Looking it up, what felt like an hour or two long drive is about 30 minutes per Googlemaps.
So, although it would have been a lot more comfortable in a larger car, the small car did the trip without killing us or having any murders committed.
I remember when I was a kid in the US and my mother took me to Mr. Big Toyland, a store of Japanese imports ostensibly referred to as toys (that would be referred to as collectibles today) that advertised everywhere and was like El Dorado for kids. I went twice, which was more than friends whose parents had money to actually buy them stuff there went because it was such a long drive for everyone involved. Turns out it was 30 miles and traffic was a fraction of what it is now. Now factor the multi-hour drives north for vacation and I don’t know how nobody died for various reasons.
Also, “Mr. Big” was way ahead of his time. What he wanted to do was sell to anime man-children that I don’t think existed in the ’80s, but all he could get was a bunch of kids, and he’d follow them around the jam-packed store with a scowl as if expecting them to somehow jam a box of the Space Battleship Yamato model down their pants. I totally understood as I didn’t like kids even when I was one, but it was uncomfortable being under observation like that. I’m pretty sure he closed long before anime became a huge thing.
It’s fun to do googlemaps from kid’s trips. Back when the best you could hope for is a quiz book with an invisible ink pen, a magnet beard man or a place mat and 4 crayons to keep you busy, trips took FOREVER.
I’ll look up common trips I took as a kid and they are shockingly short. My parents went once a year to Uniontown, PA from the DC area. The trip was an all day thing, with packing the car in the morning, driving forever, stopping at an Amish place for a giant meal and then another long drive to check into a motel that was top class when they were young (and run down by the time I came along). Looking it up, it’s 204 miles.
When my kids were younger, my son played travel soccer. I remember driving down to a game in the lower part of the state, watching the game and coming back on a Saturday many times. Looking it up, it was 300 miles to get to the field and 300 miles to get back. The younger girls didn’t seem to mind, we had a flip down DVD player in the van and they would watch a movie on the way down, sit in the van and watch a second movie, and either fall asleep or watch a third on the way back. We did a LOT of Saturdays that way. To my kids, this was just the way Saturdays were several months out of the year and I have to remind them we did them now that they are older. But those once a year trips to Uniontown seem epic trips in my memory.
The license plate state spotter bingo was my favorite of those games. With traffic being a lot less back then, I think a big reason distances felt so much farther was the vehicles were loud and felt like they were uncomfortable at speeds where even bland lower end modern cars feel like they’re going slow. In a typical lower end car from the ’80s, doing 100 (well past the end of the 85 mph speedo) felt like you were competing in an endurance race and you almost never saw people driving that fast. Now it’s almost normal to see something as unimpressive as a Nissan Rogue cruising along at those speeds seemingly not even looking out for cops.
Dad and I had a game about guessing the make of a semi-truck first.
I remember driving with my grandmother in her Caprice Classic from New London CT to Zayre department store in Norwich CT and thinking it was some epic long trip, its only something like 14 miles.
My grandfather had an ’85 Caprice. I apparently once fell asleep in it standing up against the back of the front bench seat so I could look through the windshield to avoid car sickness during a drive to my aunt’s house, which was about an hour’s drive.
My grandmothers was also ’85…ish lol, maybe 1987?. It was the black and silver/grey two-tone style
I like the two-tone. My grandfather’s was black with red cloth interior. It was his last car. He was only in his early 80s (he lived until 103) when he quit driving. The day he made the decision, I heard grinding, dragging stone sound coming down the street and here he comes, sparks flying out the bottom of the front of the car. I thought part of the front crossmember or something must have fallen off somehow, but I couldn’t understand how and that it would still be driving. He pulls up to park and a huge granite cobblestone like a chunk of curbing comes sliding out from underneath. He had no idea where he picked up and I imagine the guy whose wall he drove through had wondered what happened as well. No apparent damage to the car, but he felt he probably shouldn’t be driving anymore. (I suspect what actually happened was a truck transporting the stones lost one on the road.)
I LOL’d at “I didn’t like kids even when I was one.” Reminds me of this quote from Karl Pilkington: Well, yeah, my mom always said I was old. She said I was an old baby… She said I could frown before I could walk.
My mother told me I literally came out with a frown of disappointment. The doctors/nurses even found it amusing and commented that they supposedly hadn’t seen a newborn with that expression. My middle sister came out crying excessively. Both initial reactions were prophetic.
Who exactly does this appeal to? Americans use the birth of their second kid as an excuse to buy a 3 row SUV.
Second?! Hell folks here in Yee haw land usually go out and finance a Tahoe or Expedition as soon as they’re pregnant with their first kid…
I am not here to advocate for those buying a bigger car on the first kid, but my wife packs so much things when we travel that a bigger car was really useful when we got kids.
I did not got a bigger car when my first kid was born, but when I did it for other reasons, I finally understood why so many people go on that route.
You can get bigger cars that aren’t 6,000 pound body on frame behemoths. Minivans would serve 95% of the people that buy those just fine, but that wouldn’t be FREEDOM would it?
Totally agree. Bigger car is different of body on frame full size SUV.
In most cases (imo), a wagon does solve the problem. For all others, minivans.
Unfortunately, the least expensive wagon available in the US is the now discontinued $54k Volvo V60. This leaves the $73k Audi Allroad and the $78k MB E-class. And i’m totally ignoring the BMW M5 because dozens of those might be sold.
I hate to say it but the station wagon is dead.
What is it with women and this? Some years ago, my female bestie and I went on a five-day weekend trip to DC to do the Smithsonian thing. In the summer, so the weather was going to be warm the whole time. Two days of driving, three days in DC. I took my underseat-size rollaboard. She packed enough stuff to completely fill the cargo area of my BMW wagon, plus stuff in the backseat (including my little bag, because no room in the back). I was dumbfounded. She brought a COOLER full of snacks??? Why?? Is there nothing to eat between Maine and DC or when we get there? I don’t normally even eat in my cars.
That was the first of many trips together. She still wants to overpack, but I think I have gently beaten the worst of it out of her.
In my work travels I constantly see women dragging multiple suitcase big enough to hide bodies in around airports, and wonder if they are emigrating to a foreign land or something. I don’t get it. My mother and I went to Europe together for a month with just carry-on, albeit having stretched the definition of “personal item” well beyond what would be allowed on many airlines. The perks of first class and all that.
This was actually a fun Mad TV sketch back in the day.
I’m in that camp, however we aren’t pulling the trigger on a three row SUV or minivan yet. When friends or family visit, taking two cars is a pain. Additionally, preparing for road trips is less stressful when you can just throw everything in the back without worrying about careful packing to get the hatch or trunk to close.
Van is way.
For road trips never really having to be concerned that things will fit is wonderful. Damn thing fits anything and everything.
It would not surprise me one bit if the same lobbying group behind the Kei truck bans was also working to keep these out of North America.
Who has that many kids anyway?
Weird religious whackos who don’t believe in contraception
Sadly, mostly stupid people. Smart people generally have one at most, and quite often none.
Which is how we end up living in Idiocracy.
Since all the other replies are kinda negative I’ll give a positive response.
People who decided that they had more love to give in their life after having two kids. Those who enjoyed the moments of joy they see as their first and second grow up.
Hey you’re not being a cynical online edge-lord enough! Out of here with your reasonable sincerity! (but like really, what is with all that negativity?)
I’m not quite sure but it is scary how many smilies all the negative comments get.
One part of it may be positive people with kids don’t have hours upon hours to read and comment on online articles
That’s been a growing trend I’ve seen on the site, which is disappointing considering where I felt it started
I assume it’ll remain illegal in the US because how would American manufacturers be able to force everyone into 6,000 pound body on frame behemoths on 8 years loans at 17% APR if they could carry four kiddos around in a normal sized car?!
It’s also interesting that the front passenger airbag can be switched off with the ignition key pretty much everywhere in the world, so you can use that spot for a rear facing car seat too. Pretty useful if you have a smaller car.
In the US, I’ve only seen the airbag switch on 2 seater cars, short cab pickups and vans.
If there are rear seats, I think front seat use for car seats is not allowed.
Also I was just writing on Discord the other day how huge US car seats are, they’re absolutely humongous. I get they need to be as safe as possible, but 2 rear facing car seats shouldn’t require a midsize SUV.
I don’t get why they need to be as safe as possible. Children are incredibly easy to replace via unskilled labor. It’s the fully-educated and societally useful adults who should have the most protection.
Children are the future, but today belongs to us
I’m really hoping the IIHS will expand their testing to evaluate what damage a given vehicle does when hitting a small car, perhaps reversing the vehicle roles in a side impact test. Don’t just test the impacts on the test vehicle, test the impacts on other vehicles as well. Any vehicle that does excessive damage to other vehicles would get bad scores, disqualified from top safety pick status, much higher insurance rates, etc. That would be great.
^ that. We have it and operate completely backwards in regards to this issue. It should be the vehicles capable of causing the most injury and property damage that get disqualified from top safety pick status and receive much higher insurance rates. The very same vehicles need to take a governmental hit for using excessive resources, being inefficient and higher polluters as well. There’s also the excess wear and tear on infrastructure, which is absolutely quantifiable over the expected retorts of “it’s only the commercial vehicles creating that damage”
Commercial vehicles also pay much, much higher road taxes. But it just gets passed to the consumer. Also, personal diesel vehicles drive up diesel prices. Which gets passed to you.
I mean, I guess personal diesel vehicles drive up diesel prices which increases costs of doing business, which is passed on to consumers, but if the diesel vehicle were replaced by a gas vehicle, presumably that would drive up gas prices, which would also likely get passed to you. (Unless you drive an EV and don’t do much business with smaller companies running gas vehicles, to be fair)
Too bad this is all logical, which means it is pretty much guaranteed to not happen in our society.
To some extent, in terms of insurance that is already true. Of my little fleet, the one that has the most expensive liability insurance, and by a decent margin, is my Land Rover Discovery. And for damned sure, the OTHER car is my crumple zone in that thing.