To think some people just don't give a shit about their children's safety?

[TruthSweet]

Yesterday I saw a 7 seater people carrier pull out of a car park - it was waiting to join the traffic on a main road through the town. What I saw whilst waiting to cross the road made my blood boil .

There was a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix baby bucket sitting diagonally on one of the rear most seats forward facing and not installed. I could see through the car window that the seat belt was hanging unused and the angle/direction of the baby bucket suggested it wasn't installed by ISOFIX either.

The baby was being bounced up and down on a passenger's lap (passenger was sitting on drivers side). The baby was about 6 months old (had good head control but was still quite small).

There was no excuse for not having the child in their car seat.

There was space for the car seat (if it didn't fit in the rear most seat the person sitting in middle row could have swapped).

There WAS a car seat to be used. If there was already a baby in the baby bucket it wasn't installed but merely placed on the seat so there could have been two unsafe babies in the car.

It wasn't a taxi (though children under 3 y/o still have to be in an appropriate car seat in a taxi).

If the child required placating before being put in the car seat then they could have done that in the car park before driving off.

I hate the attitude of some people in my town I see so many car seats improperly used (3 y/os sitting in baby buckets that have been installed forward facing/babies in front seats unrestrained/children jumping about the backseats/etc).

Am I being unreasonable to care about the safety of other people's children?

Or was I being unreasonable by not knocking on their window to let them how unsafe their baby was?

YANBU BUT I think everyone just has different standards.

I remember being in India a while back and they'd just introduced a new law which said all drivers of motorbikes had to wear helmets. Sure enough I saw a guy with his helmet on (unfastened), his wife behind did not, neither did the young son sat inbetween them, nor their daughter who was sat on the handlebars.

Last week I was away again and saw a mother driving along with her daughter sat on her lap.

So I tend not to bat an eyelid anymore in the UK and tend to take the opinion that as a nation we're far too paranoid about safety. When I was a kid, we used to cram 4-5ppl in the back and there was no such thing as car seats.

YANBU, it really bothers me that some people don't give a damn about their kids, although unfortunately nothing surprises me anymore

Yawn.

I sometimes wonder if it's a cultural thing - we live about 10 miles from a town where there's a very high percentage of Asians, and I frequently see children walking around on the back seat, walking from back seat to front seat, on mum's laps etc, and they're always Asians.

A couple of times I've pulled up next to them at lights and indicated that the child's belt is unfastened, ie that perhaps they haven't noticed, but they just stare blankly back. I don't bother any more.

It does seem odd, but some countries prob. don't bother so much

Actually I think YABU I think maybe they were putting the baby in the car seat and the woman was pulling out because someone was waiting for the space. If they didn't give a shit why did they have a car seat?

If you grow up in a country where war is a living memory, and many kids routinely die of malnutrition, weather-related events and vaccine-preventable-diseases, and in all kinds of accidents (medical care is hard to get, and there are no rules of the road because getting a driving license consists of paying the right bribes and fees), then carseat safety seems pretty trivial.

I guess it's up to you, OP. I don't have the energy to get outraged about stuff like that.

I actually dont think it means that they dont give a shit about their children. It may seem that way, but trust me, they love their children as much as you love your children.

They just perceive risk differently.

Anyone who makes out they love their children more because of it is a sanctimonious bore.

That is all.

Slushy - When I said pulling out of car park I meant on the slip road from car park to dual carriage way. They were no longer in the car park but on the road. They had not just pulled out of a space.

Even if they were hurrying to free up the space for some one else how the heck could you install a car seat in the row behind you whilst bouncing a baby about on your lap in a moving vehicle? I'll admit it was moving very slowly but it would soon be moving 30mph+.

I waited on the traffic island to cross slip road next to them for several minutes (as slip road joins dual carriage way just before a set of traffic lights) and no attempt was made to put baby in car seat nor to install car seat.

I hope that made things clearer not murkier!

Ok as it happens I had to take my dd out of her seat in my nan's car yesterday the reason being I put her in the seat and checked it twice pulled on all the straps, we went round a roundabout and the seat belt failed and the car seat toppled .

I dived into the back and picked the seat up and took dd out and put her on my lap for the rest of the journey (which was 5minutes) as I felt in the circumstances this was safer, when I got out I checked the seat belt and it was not locking at all. My nan has taken it to the garage, I am sure many women thought I didn't give a shit but under circumstances that actually frightened the life out of me and could have been much more serious I did as best I could.

YANBU. In my town it's very normal to see plenty of toddlers and children loose inside cars; no car seats, no seatbelts. I'm sorry to say this but it's always asian people doing this. My neighbour (from Pakistan) says in Pakistan it's quite the norm.

It's not about love it's about not wanting to make baby pate whenever you brake.

I would imagine 99.9999% of parents love their children but some just seem to lack the foresight to use the appropriate safety equipment.

I guess I am being unreasonable to care about what happens to other people's children but it just doesn't sit right with me to see children unrestrained in a car.

I was driving along an A road a couple of weeks ago and looked over to see a blue Golf with 2 adults in the front seats puffing away on fags, a window came down to flick ash and then straight back up again. I was already judging the smoking and then happened to notice a little blonde head bouncing around in the back of the car. Pulled up beside them, little girl jumping around in the back about 2 years old, completely unrestrained.

It is the most tempted I have ever been to say something but my own kids were in the back of the car and getting into a brawl wouldnt have been the smartest move.

Yes we do take these things more seriously than other countries, and we do have pretty much the lowest rate of road deaths in the world - hundreds of lives are saved every year by the interfering nanny state and paranoia, and our death rate is still dropping fast.

I do understand that if you're living in a country where the major risks to children are malnutrition or diarrhoea then car seats may not be your top priority, but in the UK, where those risks are pretty negligible then I think it's entirely reasonable to take road safety much more seriously. In my work capacity I've seen crash reports from unsecured children, which scared the living daylights out of me, and those are only the ones where the child survived.

What the hell is a baby bucket?

My sil doesn't make her kids fasten their seatbelts as they complain about it too much My dn was in the front seat when sil braked hard; he went flying forward and cracked the windscreen with his head. Lesson learned? Nah, it's still easier not to do up the belts. Some people don't want to listen, despite the consequences.

What other countries do is irrelevant, I think it's bloody stupd to not be bothered, it takes a couple of seconds. I don't understand how people can't get their kids to wear seat belts- my nieces and nephews just do it.lazy parenting.

Whether or not it's the norm for kids not to be strapped in in other countries, in the UK it's illegal, enough said

Slushy - why didn't you get your nan to pull over and re-secure your DDs seat with another seatbelt?

I think anyone that carries an unsecured child in a car is bonkers personally. But then having worked in A&E I suppose my view of risk relating to seatbelt and carseat useage might be different to other people's.

It's not your business. All this busybodying and judging other people's parenting, it's all in the same basket as reporting those children for riding bikes to school, it's all a bit Orwellian in my book.

Because my ds was in the other seat so I checked his seat belt which was fine and put dd on my lap, I was unsure if I was allowed to fasten dd or ds in the front seat. We were literally just down the road from my house.

"It wasn't a taxi (though children under 3 y/o still have to be in an appropriate car seat in a taxi)."

Is that correct? I though there was no legal requirement to use a car seat in a taxi?

Don't have to have a carseat in a taxi actually.

Why you wouldn't use one if there was one there though is beyond me.

Perhaps the baby had had explosive diarrhea on the outward journey? No way to tell.

who knows why they had the baby on their lap, there could be a number of reasons.

And fwiw, i have travelled in taxi's both with dd and ds and never once used a car seat. How would you expect people to do that with a toddler then? Go into town with a 2 year old walking, one in a buggy, and carry two, stage two carseats, aswell as do shopping?! Yeah, fucking fantastic idea that!

who knows why they had the baby on their lap, there could be a number of reasons.

And fwiw, i have travelled in taxi's both with dd and ds and never once used a car seat. How would you expect people to do that with a toddler then? Go into town with a 2 year old walking, one in a buggy, and carry two, stage two carseats, aswell as do shopping?! Yeah, fucking fantastic idea that!