I recently went to a car safety check with the state police and while I was told that I had installed my daughter's car seat correctly, the officer said that everything in the backseat had to go. I had toys, books, juice boxes, an umbrella, etc. and had frequently brought groceries home in the back seat of my very small car. I questioned the officer about why I would have to remove the books as they were in a fabric box which was secured with a seat belt. So, I am questioning him with "a paper back book? I can't keep the paper back books?" His reply: "G-force". He did say that a stuffed animal is fine as he threw my daughter's stuffed monkey at me and asked if it hurt. We also have a large selection of recorded songs and stories. Driving is always a great time to sing or have a great conversation (even if you end up asking a lot of questions or talking more than your child) or discussing what you see outside.
My husband and I decided to take our chances with the paperback books in the car and remove everything else. This is some information about G-force so you can make your own decision. I had forgotten that at the car safety class that we had attended before my daughter had been born, they had told us not to have any potential projectiles in the car.
http://www.aaanewsroom.net/Main/Default.asp?CategoryID=7&ArticleID=640
This is a AAA article that states that if you are driving only 30 miles an hour with a 10 pound laptop, the force of its hitting you will feel like it weighs 300 pounds.
http://www.e-z.net/~ts/physics.htm
This is an article that says that Sir Isaac Newton's 1st law of motion states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. (So if you are traveling 60 miles an hour and suddenly have an accident that stops your car, you will stop but everything that is not tied down in your car will keep going and potentially hit you or your child.
Newton's 2nd law of motion is (in real people language): Force = Mass multiplied by acceleration. So the force of the item hitting you will not be what it really weighs (say 5 pounds) but will be its weight multiplied by the speed that you are going (say 30 miles an hour) (5 pound object times 30 miles an hour will feel like 150 pounds hitting you.)
So even if you are just traveling back from the grocery store with your can of Eden brand beans (because every other can and some plastics have the dreaded Bisephonol (BPA) chemical in them) and you are driving 35 miles an hour with your 1 pound can of beans it is still going to have the force of a 35 pound object if you happen to get hit or hit someone else. Yikes!
http://organicgrace.com/node/316 (Article about the dangers of BPA)
Makes you see why when adults don't where there seat belt and end up flying through the window they almost always die: 150 pound adult times 50 miles an hour equals 7,500 pounds of force on the body when the adult hits the ground.
Science, hmmm, interesting.
