MacDoctor,I certainly agree with the three causes you point to be a solution is a lot harder to find. Have you any suggestions to improve the situation of too many absent fathers? I may be reading you wrong but the the you of the term “absent fathers” implies that most of the fault lies with fathers.

There are, of course, many reasons why fathers may be absent. Only some of them attributable to fathers.

No, its a terrible idea. They have a similar law in Ireland, up to the age of 12 I think. The unintended consequences are nuts.

For example, if you were doing youth work and transporting children under 148cm tall, you have to have a boot full of booster seats to have one on every seat in your car. This is another expense and frustration making it more difficult for people to actually work with youth, especially at-risk youth. And when you aren’t using them your boot is often full of seats, which is a great nuisance.

It then gives a strong incentive for youth workers to use old vehicles that can transport large numbers of children with no seatbelts required by law (e.g. an old Landrover, you can seat 9 people in one of those but only need 3 seatbelts). So the children are worse off.

Yes, promote booster seats as being better for your own children. But don’t make it compulsory.

Mr Dennis’s last blog post..I am a right moderate social libertarian, apparantly

Ah, yes. The law of unintended consequences strikes again…