Carseat and booster seat to US

Hi, I'm planning to bring my 2 kids to West Coast. And would like to know whether the carseat in Hongkong is allowed there. I have no idea if US have any special requrement on size etc. Any input is appreciated. My kids are 5 and 1 1/2 years old.

Thanks.

I brought our car seat to LA last year and it worked just fine. I think the only requirement is to be able to strap children safely at the back seat of the car.

I always found that car seats were too cumbersome (heavy most of all!) when travelling. Most of the time we have used the Joeysafe. It's a portable child safety harness which you just attach to a normal car seat belt. We used it on a recent trip to Bali (on the plane) however do check with the airline you are flying with first. It is also approved by the US Motor Federation so you can use it in replacement of the car seat. Do a google on Joeysafe.

Thanks Kmom and MdmButterfly.

Will check on Joeysafe, but I thought if visiting US, me must have a carseat. Please correct me on this. Thanks.

Your carseat from here is fine for the US. How long are you going for? If it's a short trip, it might be easier to just rent a carseat and a booster seat from the car rental company in the US.


As for Joeysafe, I believe that they are okay for the US (that's what it says in their website), but I personally have never used one. Maybe someone that has will comment.

We have used the Joeysafe a few times when we travelled back to the States. As it's lightweight and portable it was great whilst travelling with a 2 and 3 year old. As the website says, it is approved in the US to use it without car seats and best of all, you can already use it on the plane too.

Joey sounds very convenient. You could double check with the Department of Motor Vehicles for the state you are visiting (most of them are online now) to make sure it's listed on their approved car seat list. But really, the most important thing is safety. One of my children has permanent nerve injury in her neck from being jolted around in a sideways car crash, and she was in one of the best car seats you could buy. I can't imagine a harness being as safe as a big seat with a 5 point restraint system. My solution last summer was to fly without a car seat, borrow one from my friend for a bit and then purchase one at Target (about $70 U.S. for midrange). Renting one at the airport sounds like a better solution. Maybe check also with the car rental company about availability and cost of that solution? As bad as traffic is here, we generally drive in the inner city here where the car crashes are low speed. Car crashes in the USA appear to me to be higher speed overall and therefore more deadly on percentage basis. The car that crashed into the side of my mother's car (with my child in the car) was going about 50 MPH, smashed into the passenger side door only about a foot from where she was buckled, indenting the side of the car in about 2 feet and shaking her violently side to side. I'm just so glad she was protected as much as she was, but the awful nerve pain running down her arms took ten years to resolve, and we're lucky it resolved at all. At one point she missed a semester of school due to horrible pain, and three neurologists had told us (after thousands of dollars of some painful tests) that she would just have to learn to live with it. So, convenience is really great but don't sacrifice safety!

So, like the mothers on the Oprah show (in women only thread) I really would advocate the view of better safe than sorry. But for moderate exposure in a relatively safe country, I can understand if you opt for convenience.