Decision taken from me about dangerous driving

I can't believe that 9% have polled that the OP is unreasonable! Apart from being illegal it's downright dangerous!
It doesn't matter how far the journey is or how fast the driver is driving! RTC's happen regularly and you can be the world's most competent driver and still get involved.
OP you are far from being unreasonable, you are teaching your kids a valuable lesson. Please ask your daughter to call you if this ever arises again. Even when they are older I would rather get out of bed at 2am and collect them rather than them have an unsafe journey!

I was well in my teens (I was born in 1965) before we had a car with rear seatbelts and that was well before it was a legal requirement. They weren't required to be fitted until cars registered in 1992. Prior to that, there was a lot of just stuffing everyone in. That said, my parents always insisted we wore them before it was required.

You would think awareness would have come on but some of the comments on here would suggest not as much as it should.

My dc started primary school between 2002 and 2007. Parents shoving extra kids in the back happened but it was rare. It was the type of parent you wouldn't feel too confident about anyway. I really would have thought by now that it would be an absolute no-no but obviously not.

You must have been very young as front seatbelts became a legal requirement in the UK in 1983. 1979 in Ireland where I live.

I had a row with the school principal many years ago over this (my dc are all adults so between 15 and 20 years ago). The school pitch was about a 5 minute walk so a 2 or 3 minute drive. The kids were down there and the principal decided to pile them all into the school minibus for the return journey as it was raining. Dc told me they were all squashed in and nobody wearing seatbelts. I told the principal that under no circumstances was that to happen again. My dc could walk, they could phone me to collect or they could make 2 journeys but he was not to be put in a vehicle without everyone having their own seatbelt. Principal started arguing that it was only a short journey. He eventually agreed not to do it again with any of my dc.

How does that make it a safe area to drive? It makes an accident less likely, because of time and distance, but it doesn’t make the area safe to drive in.

in fact, areas with less traffic are deemed higher risk, in terms of being found quickly after an accident, and being found.

Absolutely no way is this acceptable. Both who shared the seat belt could have been seriously injured/fatally injured in the event of an accident.

It’s very hard not to ruminate on ‘what ifs’ but all you can do now is think ahead and try to put this behind you. I still feel guilty and sick about not having my first baby seat incorrectly installed when leaving the hospital 19 years ago (useless exh had one job …)

If it’s upsetting, I suggest you move away from the thread and certainly don’t use laughing emojis when replying, that doesn’t indicate upset, so again you’ve come across not as you intended. A laughing emoji indicates to me, that you think it’s funny, but of course that’s not what you meant, I’m sure.

Thank you.

As with all things, context is important. Where I live, we are pretty quiet. If I chose to drive down my lane to the scout hut half a mile away with a kid not strapped in 99 times out of a hundred we wouldn't pass another car. Same can't be said for the situation in the OP's case, of 20 miles on dial carriageways. That is just bonkers.

Anyone remember the TV advert "Julie knew her killer?"

I'm pretty happy to have my line be 'is it illegal' as it's just not worth taking any sort of risk of being separated from my kids.

My kids walk themselves the mile to school and stay home alone and eat grapes and climb trees way higher than I can reach and eat junk food and take aerial classes and do plenty of things that teach them how to assess risk without it taking over their lives... but if something is illegal that's enough for me.

I can’t even remember what the deleted post was, I think it was just asking the person to stop googling articles about a traumatic incident they knew nothing about.

I am TELLING you that the post was suggesting one extra child in a car is nothing like the incident which a poster immediately jumped in and compared it to. I am sure there are many other crashes that involve unbelted extra children that it may be comparable to.

I don’t know why you’re harassing me and if you look back at my posts you will see absolutely no defence of unsafe driving so I have no idea why you are determined suggest I am doing so unless in bad faith.

You’re actually making me pretty upset (along with the other poster frantically googling the Oxford Mail like it’s some kind of win), as my post was about working on the crash aftermath and that is not something you can decide is in poor taste.

When my son was about 11 he went to a party about 20 miles away - 4 kids in each car with the mum and her sister driving. The next day it came up in conversation that the two women had decided to race each other home so had been overtaking in stupid places, speeding etc.

I dread to think what might have happened. How can people be so stupid and reckless when they've got other people's kids in their cars?

I’m not wrong on all counts because you decide so, I’m not wrong that you’ve had a post justifiably deleted, I’m not wrong that your posts were at best unclear and a t worst exactly how I and others interpreted them. I’m not wrong that it’s poor taste to use the laughing emoji around the death of children.

My thoughts and that of others, are how we view you, that’s not wrong.

I actually think the consequences of living a life with this level of worry, and with the need for the highest degree of safety and control are also dangerous, though not easily quantifiable. That is why my boundaries around things like car seats and when it is ok to leave kids alone for a few minutes are not in line with UK 2025 beliefs, and occasionally law.

I agree that teaching children that cheating is ok is a terrible idea, but I am not sure that this is an example of cheating. I think children need to understand that things are seldom black and white, that crossing the street against the light if there are no cars in sight is ok, whereas crossing then the light is green without checking for cars is not.

I am 60 and have lived in a lot of places and a lot of circumstances.

Well sure, but the vanishingly low probability is a car accident with no insurance and a legal problem - plus the potential injuries to all the passengers in the car due to an improperly restrained passenger. So the risk/benefit isn't in its favour as clearly this child had a parent who could have just come to get her so it wasn't an emergency or a necessity or some other reason that it would make sense to consider a stupid risk.

It also teaches children that cheating is fine if there's some sort of justification. And the justification here is 'I planned poorly and no one remembered how to use a phone' which is ridiculous.

I 'once' had my kids in a taxi without a carseat. Our flight was delayed 7 hours and we landed at home at 1am, after the public transport options. The airline lost our carseats and had run out of replacements (they have a couple they lend out for this sort of thing apparently but not this night). We phoned 3 friends who (fairly) didn't answer and then got a taxi home. I actually am not even sure it was worth the amount of stress that gave me - we really couldn't figure out another option outside just sleeping at the airport, and it still felt like a stupid risk to take.

Well you’re wrong on all counts, but now you know what that comment did mean.

Can you tell me what a “safe area” is in terms of driving? I don’t believe such a place exists?

Everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, until it does.