1. Single bike, child in child seat (Topeak Babysitter).

2. Single bike, child in trailer (Burley D'Lite)

3. Single bike, child on trailerbike (Adams Trail-A-Bike)

4. Tandem bike, child in child seat.

5. Tandem bike, child with kid stoker attachment.

6. Tandem bike, child on trailerbike.


BACKGROUND:
Up to now, my family cycling has consisted of me pulling a Burley 2-child trailer, mostly with one kid in it. Now, my oldest is reaching the age where the trailer is a bit too boring (he's 4, will be turning 5 next summer). I recently bought a tandem, and I'm thinking about getting some kid cranks and putting him in the stoker seat. I guess I'll probably want to take Kid #2 (20 mos.) along, too. So I'm thinking I can either put Kid #2 in the Burley (and have a long train), or in his own child seat on the back of the tandem (sort of like #4 and #5 above). The Burley is sort of a drag chute; with all of us on the bike, I expect that we could rocket along the flats at pretty good speeds, too.

When I first began using the trailer, I really felt that child seats on bikes were unsafe. But now I'm starting to think maybe they aren't so bad. And maybe they are safer on tandems - you are less likely to end-flip a tandem, and the fixed stoker bars will hold it off the ground if it falls over to the side.

Also, with the trailer, I was pretty concerned about traffic and rode it mainly on bike paths (except for a mile or two from my house to the trail.) Now I'm wondering if the tandem might be enough safer that I could ride it in traffic - would be a fun way to go for ice cream...


I'm not really looking for a ranking of the relative safety, but I would like to know what you think. Is a kid stoker any more/less at risk than a tot in a child seat? Is a kid stoker safer than a trailer rider?