Quote Originally Posted by gRomoZeka View Post
I wonder if laws in Ukraine are different or if we are just ignorant. None of my friends with kids had special car seats, and I hasten to assure you that all these kids survived to their preteen years just fine.
Undoubtedly, such car seats will be getting more and more popular, as the old mentality gets weaker and families income and awareness grow, but still sitting in the kids seat until you are 12 (twelve!) seems a bit extreme.
I grew up in the days when kids in the US only rode in a seat as long as the parent's felt like having one. I was about 1 or 2 when I switched to just an improperly worn seatbelt. Sometimes I rode in the bed of the truck, completely unrestrained. I survived! That is only because I was never in a car crash. I shudder to think if I had been.

Quote Originally Posted by kozyablo View Post
but for 12 years, people don't use a real seat = for this age this is just a pillow

PS = now in Moscow lenght of traffic jams are above 1 MEGAmeter
this is a hell especially for child in детских удерживающих устройствах...
As for discomfort, I can tell you that my kids have been very comfortable in their restraints for long drives. This summer we drove 14 hours from California to Utah. The little kids were nuts, but thank goodness they were strapped down and could only hit, kick, and make noise! My oldest child will be 12 in a month. I've been talking to her about getting out of the booster seat. She tells me that she does not want out because she has pillows to rest her head against when she is tired. Recently we had one car seat out of commission. (It got peed in and I had misplaced an integral part while washing.) I had my 8 year old ride in a vest restraint. After a 1.5 hour trip he complained that he never wanted to ride in the vest again. The vest itself was not the uncomfortable part- it was sitting on a plain old vehicle seat with nothing to lean his head against. Of course, I buy and sell car seats so that I can have the super duper fancy, shmancy, comfortable and colorful car seats for my kids and I keep them sparkly clean, so my kids have a different car seat experience than many other kids. (I work at car seat check events and see the nasty, filthy seats a majority of kids have to sit in.)