The RideSafer Travel Vest promises to make travel with young children significantly easier, while also keeping them safe. It is an alternative to a travel car seat for vacations or taxi trips around town.
I couldn’t wait for my children to get big enough to safely start using this travel vest car seat! I expected it to revolutionize our maneuverability during travel. However, it is not quite as simple as it seems, and there is a learning curve to truly take advantage of its practicality.
So does the Ride Safer Travel Vest live up to all of its promises as a car seat alternative?
I say yes – but with a few things to know.
What is the RideSafer Vest?
Most people think of the RideSafer as a wearable car seat, as though it adds a secure 5-point harness, but this isn’t exactly true. It would be more accurate to call it a wearable booster seat.
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The vest functions by essentially bringing the car’s seat belt down to the right place for a young child to use.
Seat belts work by locking up in a crash, holding your body in place. They contact the strongest points of your body (your hips and shoulder) to safely distribute the force of the crash on you.
The RideSafer threads the seat belt through the vest so that it is contacting your child’s shoulder and hips, just like seat belts are designed to do. With extra padding and structure, it will distribute the force in the safest possible way. Whereas a booster brings your child up to the seat belt, a kids seat belt vest brings the seat belt down to your child, and with added protection
And to clear up a little confusion, it is called the RideSafer, not the Safe Rider Vest, the Ride Safe Travel Vest, or the Rider Safe Vest. And the company that produces the RideSafer harness is called Safe Ride 4 Kids.
Who can use a travel car seat vest, and why would you?
The RideSafer can be used by children at least 3 years old and 30 lbs. (There are actually 3 sizes, covering kids up to 110 lbs and 14 years old.)
The primary advantage of using this vest is the portability. This thing is under 3 lbs. and about the size of a folded sweatshirt – it can go places that a car seat cannot… like your backpack.
This makes it ideal for travel, because it is a huge pain to bring a car seat along on a trip (for a child who is old enough not to use it on the plane). But I personally do not want to compromise on safety just because we are traveling. We use a lot of taxis – from the airport, around the city, out sightseeing – and this vest makes it possible to do all those things safely, without having to bring a car seat everywhere we go.
This vest is also a great solution for car-free families who live in the city. Rather than bringing a car seat for the taxi every time you need one, you can bring this vest and keep it in a backpack.
Is the RideSafer Travel Vest legal?
The RideSafer Vest is a FMVSS 213 certified child restraint system. This means it is a legal restraint within the US, although some states are a little finicky with their definitions. You can look up how the manufacturer responds to your specific state laws and regulations here.
Keep in mind that all countries have their own certification processes, and child safety equipment – car seats included – are often only certified in one place. It’s not that the safety standards are necessarily higher and they wouldn’t pass them, but the certification process is such that most companies are either certified in the US or the EU (or another country, for that matter), but not for both.
RideSafer does have an EU-certified version for sale to customers in Europe. Canadian customers can get a US version, but technically should have a doctor’s note as it is regulated as a child car harness for special needs (see more info here).
Generally, when you travel, you can legally use your child restraint from home so long as it is certified within your home country (as the RideSafer is in the US).
There are a few countries that require visitors to use restraints that are certified in their country, but enforcement of this is pretty unrealistic. For these countries (Australia is the biggie), it wouldn’t matter if you had a travel vest or a car seat; if it is a US product, it technically isn’t approved.
Is it as safe as a car seat?
Nothing is as safe as a rear-facing car seat, and ideally any child under 5 should be in a full 5-point harness car seat.
That being said, the mechanics of the RideSafer and a forward-facing car seat are very similar. The body is held securely in place, but the head is not.
The vest comes with a tether which is is recommended for younger or smaller children when using the RideSafer. The tether holds the whole upper body in place, making it act more like a 5-point harness. This also prevents slumping to keep the child in a safe position.
A 3-year-old still has a head that is proportionally too large for their body, meaning there is greater risk of injury or death than if that child were rear-facing. But the RideSafer with the top tether is a very safe choice, similar to using a forward facing car seat.
Why not just get a booster seat?
Boosters are not inherently travel-friendly. They can be just as bulky as a regular car seat. However, these days there are some extremely portable booster seats on the market. Two traveler favorites are the Mifold (which literally folds up to the shape and size of a clutch handbag) and the BubbleBum or Hiccapop inflatable backless boosters. And these are fabulous options for older kids. We have a BubbleBum that we love for our now-5-year-old.
All boosters are rated for kids 4 years old and at least 40 lbs. When we decided on the RideSafer, it was for our 3-year-old.
But beyond the manufacturer’s rating, car seat technicians generally recommend that you wait until at least 5 years old to use any kind of backless booster – travel or otherwise.
Why? Boosters require your child to sit correctly of her own volition. Booster seats allow your child to lean forward, squirm down, lay sideways… basically, your child needs to be mature enough to sit correctly at all times for the seat belt to work. Most parents find that realistically only happens after 5 (and much later for some kids).
The RideSafer Vest holds your child more securely in place. It is not as immovable as a 5-point harness – a really squirmy child could still get themselves into an unsafe position. But, especially with the tether, it offers a lot more structure to keep most kids sitting safely for the entire ride.
What is it really like to use?
It turns out the experience of using the RideSafer Vest is a little bit more complex than it sounds on the surface.
For one thing, getting the vest on is more complicated than I expected. We got the hang of it pretty quickly once we had it all adjusted for my 3-year-old, but it is not something she could put on and buckle by herself.
The trickier part is actually getting the seat belt positioned correctly. This is something you will want to practice at home in your own car before trying it out in a taxi! It’s not that it’s particularly complicated, but it took some getting used to before I felt confident that we were actually doing it right.
Coming from my experience of using car seats, I expected it to fit snug in order to be safe. This isn’t necessarily the case. According to the manual, it is okay if there is a gap in the waist, if the harness straps are loose, if the shoulders don’t touch the top of the vest, and if there is some bunching around the lap belt. All of this felt really nerve-wracking for me, but when you think about the mechanics of how the harness works, these things will not impact it.
What does matter is that the belt is threaded properly so that it contacts the shoulder and the tops of the thighs, and that it does not ride up while you’re traveling (there is a crotch strap to help with this, although my daughter found it very uncomfortable and was fine without it once we got good at positioning her right).
This was the biggest problem that I had with the vest, actually. I just didn’t feel completely confident that I was doing it right, which is kind of ironic since about 90% of car seats are used incorrectly, and this is significantly more straightforward to learn than proper car seat installation.
Here is the process we used while out and about:
- Put the vest on my daughter and buckle it while waiting for the taxi to pull up
- Have her climb in and sit in one of the seats with a shoulder belt (if there are lap belts only, you must use the tether)
- Remind her to sit up straight and put her back flat against the seat
- Pull out the belt far enough to have extra slack and buckle it
- Feed the lap belt into the two clips on the thigh pads
- Pull it tight, and then feed the shoulder belt into the top clip
- That’s it! She’s ready to go!
We would always have the tether with us, and check to see if there was an accessible spot to tether. It was a bit more work, but it added an extra level of safety. Not all cars – particularly older ones – have a spot for a tether.
Because the RideSafer is best with a shoulder belt, and we had a car seat for my younger daughter, I spent most of our first trip with the vest squished in the center seat between my two children.
While the RideSafer is much lighter, smaller, and more portable than a car seat, you still need to account for the space it takes. I did not have room for it in our day bag/diaper bag, so my daughter carried it. We got her a little toddler backpack, which would hold the vest, her water bottle, and a snack.
Bottom line: Is the RideSafer Travel Vest worthwhile?
Yes. I absolutely recommend this vest for families who travel with preschool-age children (from around 3 to 6).
I wouldn’t want to replace my everyday car seat with it, for a few reasons. It is more work to put on and deal with than keeping a car seat installed. It keeps my child low in the seat, and she gets bored quickly when she can’t see out the windows. It does not offer the same level of protection as a full-structured car seat with a 5-point harness.
But I love to have it available as a backup, to lend to grandparents or other caregivers who don’t have a car seat, to use in situations where we need to get three kids in a single row (this can fit easily along with 2 car seats), and especially for travel.
I will continue to use the RideSafer Travel Vest until my daughter is old enough to switch to safely using a travel booster, at least age 5. To me, two years of convenience during our travels is well worth the price tag.
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Originally published August, 2020. Updated January, 2022.
2 thoughts on “RideSafer Travel Vest Review: Is It a Practical Solution for Families?”
Great post. Would your out your kid in a mifold? I’m reading mixed reviews on the safety of the mifold.
Great question, Mike. Honestly, probably not. I’ve researched the mifold a lot, and have found the same mixed reviews – and critically, car seat experts tend to be the ones that don’t like it or trust it. I would consider it for an older kid (like 6+), but at that point I would more likely get a bubblebum. Until they turn at least 5, I’m planning to stick with the RideSafer (unless something better comes out in the meantime).