This summer, my family visited Italy and France, staying in rural areas in both countries (see my post on Tuscany with Kids). While the trip was beautiful, staying in rural areas requires a lot of driving. Car time with a 4-year-old can be stressful, and safety is not something I ever want to skimp on. This is why I chose to bring the Ride Safer Travel Vest on this trip. Read on for my honest review of this booster seat alternative.

What is it?

The Ride Safer Travel Vest is a convenient and compact alternative to car/booster seats for children three and up. While traditional booster seats bring the child up to the seatbelt, the Ride Safer vest brings the seatbelt down to the child.

To use, the child wears the vest, which is securely fastened using a metal hook and sits directly on the seat of the car. The seatbelt then passes through a series of metal loops on the vest, which positions the shoulder strap correctly for the child’s size and secures the lap belt along the upper thighs, avoiding abdominal injury in the case of an accident.

Why I Chose it

I take car safety very seriously and refuse to let my feelings on this issue wane while I travel. I have tried numerous car safety approaches while traveling, but none seem to work well. Traveling with a full-sized car seat is cumbersome, and even though I purchased a travel bag with backpack straps, it was still hard to lug around. The easiest option if you are renting a car is to rent a car seat with it, but I have NEVER had good luck with this. The seats are always dirty and of questionable quality, and the rental agencies charge far too much. The last time I did this, I ended up purchasing a brand new car seat because I couldn’t in good conscious keep my daughter in the rental one. Good thing it was time to upgrade her infant seat at home anyway.

Knowing that we would drive a lot on our trip, I knew I needed to find another option. While my daughter, at four years old, technically falls within the safety limits of a standard booster seat, I know it would not be safe for her. She cannot sit straight in a seatbelt with a harness, and she would slump out of it as soon as she fell asleep. The selling point for me for the Ride Safer was the back tether which helps keep the child upright even while they sleep.

How I Used It

Before our long trip, I used the Ride Safer vest on a short weekend trip as a test run. The first thing I noticed was how tiny my 4-year-old looked in the seat. She was very low and could not see out the window, and she suffers from motion sickness, so this was no good. Not long after we started driving, she got sick.

Knowing this and that children legally have to be in an elevated seat in Europe, I started looking into options to use the vest with a booster seat. It is stated by the manufacturer that you absolutely cannot use the vest with a seat that also uses the seatbelt for fastening. However, they make a booster seat with which you can use the Ride Safer Travel Vest because it uses ISOFIX to attach to the car. Unfortunately, their seat was sold out, so I communicated with the manufacturer about using the Chicco GoFit, which also uses ISOFIX. While they could not state 100% that this combination would be safe because they had not crash-tested it, they did confirm that the Chicco GoFit uses the same fastening method as their booster and should function the same.

With this knowledge, I decided to purchase the Chicco GoFit to use with the Ride Safer Travel Vest. While bringing a booster did not make this combo quite as portable, it was smaller than a car seat, and I felt safe with the decision. We just carried the booster on the airplane with us and stored it in the overhead bin.

Pros

I definitely felt that my daughter was safe in the Ride Safer vest. It was sturdy, fit well, and placed the seatbelt where it should be. It took a few tries to fully understand how to place the seatbelt, but we were good once I got it. Pro tip – make sure the lower portion sits on the upper thighs and not the stomach.

The back tether worked exactly as I wanted, keeping her upright and seated where she needed to be. When she fell asleep, she would slump down as she does in a car seat, and the tether kept her body upright. She would have just fallen over if she had been in a regular booster.

Cons

The Ride Safer vest comes with a removable neck support which, to me, does not seem well designed for a smaller child. I wanted to use it for neck safety, but the back portion was too thick, pushing my daughter’s head uncomfortably forward. She complained about it so much we finally just removed it. This was mostly a problem when she fell asleep because she had nothing to rest her head on, so it would just flop around.

Even with a booster, she still could not see out the window. This is quite the problem if you have a child with motion sickness. Thankfully the pharmacy had an Italian version of Dramamine available. This is no fault of the vest, just an observation of why a full car seat may have been better at this age.

Final Thoughts

I 100% think the Ride Safer Travel Vest is a fantastic option for older children.

For younger children like mine, I like the idea of the Ride Safer vest, but I think it depends on the trip you are taking and how much driving there will be. For intermittent car use or taxi rides, this is a fantastic option. It folds up very small and can easily fit in a backpack. However, for more car usage, it may not be the best option. The discomfort of sleeping and the low seating position makes it a bit too uncomfortable.

If I could go back and redo this trip, I think I would have purchased a cheaper car seat when I arrived in Italy and then found a local charity to donate it to after. It probably would cost less than a car rental agency and provided a bit more comfort for the amount of driving we did.

However, the Ride Safer vest will stay in my rotation for shorter trips and when my daughter is a bit older. In my opinion, it is far safer than a standard booster.