Consumer Confidential: Credit cards, muscle carts and car seats

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Here’s your woe-it’s-Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

• Fedmeister Ben Bernanke says the Federal Reserve may speed up new credit card regulations -- or maybe not. Amid efforts by lawmakers to get tough new laws on the books, Bernanke said it’s possible that the Fed’s own efforts could arrive sooner than their current arrival date of Feb. 22. But he’s concerned that banks need sufficient time ‘to allow for an orderly transition and to avoid unintended consequences, compliance difficulties and potential liabilities.’ I say: Get some darned safeguards in place and worry about consequences and difficulties later.

• The Consumer Product Safety Commission says it’ll take a closer look at so-called ROVs, or off-road recreational vehicles. The four-wheel contraptions, which look like golf carts on steroids, have been responsible for more than 100 deaths since 2003, the agency says. ROV-makers have proposed voluntary safety regulations, but officials say those rules don’t go far enough. So the commission will now explore its own crackdown. How hard can this be? Write some rules that keep people from dying. Is this something that really needs to be negotiated?

• Car seats are great ... in cars. On the dining room table? Not so much. That’s the conclusion of a new study which found that more than 43,000 kids ended up in the emergency room between 2003 and 2007 after falling in car seats placed atop tables and other high surfaces. The problem, of course, is that kids wriggle and jiggle, and can send unsecured car seats tumbling. Note to parents: Keep the car seat in the car. Keep the kid in a crib or down on the floor.

-- David Lazarus