Originally Posted by
dblumenhoff
I understand why car seats need to go in a window seat. Because they are bulky and could create an obstruction when trying to escape in an emergency, so you don't want anyone sitting "inside" of a car seat. That has always made perfect sense to me.
By the same logic, a CARES harness should not have such a rule, since it effectively takes up no more extra space than the seat itself. Someone trying to escape from the window would have no more trouble getting out if there is a CARES harness in the middle seat. Is there another reason I'm missing?
The extra time it may take to unbuckle a CARES harness may be just as bad as a carseat physically blocking egress in an emergency.
The truth is that somebody probably argued a CARES harness wasn't a carseat but like any rule or policy it got solved with all the bluntness of a hammer and got declared a carseat or CRS so that nobody had to think about what it is and could just say it should go in the window seat.