that a mother has put my dc at risk, and not to say anything about it.

[poppincandy]

My dd (13) was invited to a birthday party, but I was unable to take her as I was at work. Therefore dd declined the invitation.

When she told her friend why she couldn't go, the mother of the girl who's party it was, offered to take her. This is not someone I know, but as a school friend, I was happy for her to go.

Fast forward to day of the party dd went with this girl and realised a number of the others were also getting a lift with the girl and her mum, 9 girls and the mum in a Zafira. One girl was to go in the front, 4 in the middle and 4 in the back. Now my dd said that she'd better not go, as I wouldn't like her travelling like that - the girl's mother basically coerced her and said oh it's fine don't worry about it, and unfortunately she gave into peer pressure, and travelled approximately 5 miles to the party like this.

Now dd is right and if I had known this was the travelling arrangements there would be no way I'd of allowed her to travel to the party like that, even if it meant she did not attend the party.

Now I want to contact the mother and tell her I'm not happy at all, but dd has asked not to embarrass her further, and won't accept a lift with this mother again, dh has said just don't let her drive dd any where again.

AIBU to be cross at this, would you allow your dd to travel to the party? Do I keep quiet now and just not allow this mother to give my dd a lift ever again?

7 boys killed in an overloaded car two weeks ago in Donegal. Age range 18-23. 7 devastated families, entire community affected by the tragedy.

But they weren't wusses. That's the main thing.

yonbu and I wouldnt like any of mine to do this, have even sent car seats in the past with other parents. It was so very wrong of this mother to put your daughter in this position but can see it would be tricky to say anything now and I know I would find it hard to do. Your daughter seems sensible though so you probably have to trust her if the situation arises again. Never been in this specific situation but do find a lot of my dds friends parents seem to do stuff I wouldnt do or let my kids do - given their age.

I would imagine that the other parents don't know as it sounds like the OP's daughter was the last to be picked up. If someone came to collect your child in an otherwise empty Zafira you wouldn't think twice. If you were the 7th you'd think they were going to destination now. So I would be thinking about informing those parents who handed their child over in good faith.

I can remember sharing seats, traveling in the boot of an estate with everyone's coats in case we saw a police car and even traveling in the boot with the cover on! My parents were BB officers and took 14 boys out in their car once and it wouldn't have been a big car. We learn and move on.

I often think that a worthwhile thing for schools to teach would be the physics of car accidents. There's a whole set of misconceptions about why we wear seatbelts, what crumple zones do, why we need things like door bars, all of which make people do irrational things. The basic idea - that you need to extend the accident for as long as possible, to minimise the forces on the passengers, while simultaneously keeping them away from the structure of the car - leads to crumple zones around a safety cell, with the passengers restrained enough but not too much within in. But the sequence is hard to follow.

I think the "my old Land Rover is much tougher than these new fangled cars that crumple, much safer" idea dies pretty hard. A lot of naive people think they are protecting their family by buying a 4x4, when in fact they're pretty much the last place you want to be in an accident. And I've heard people who, upon seeing crash test dummies whipping forward in an accident, expressing the idea that it would be better if you were held in your seat more firmly. Well, apart from the broken neck. The basic trade off in the body shell is that rigid cars cause internal injuries, crumpling cars cause broken limbs, and inside the car the trade off is that tight belts break necks, stretchy belts fracture skulls. Understanding how all that fits together is an interesting physics lesson, and might help people understand how to behave safely inside cars.

I wouldn't try to talk people into overloading a car, but am not shocked since like SGB this was normal practice when I grew up.

As for those who died in the donagal crash those boys were men and were not killed because the car was overloaded unless someone has evidence to the contrary.

I'm really not sure how people manage these days. Maybe everyone sticks to two children so they fit. There were seven kids in my family so we'd have never gone anywhere unless we won the lottery and got the servants to drive 3 extra cars.

SweetGrapes, I went to your link, but it didn't say that people were being saved by belts/car seats/airbags. I expect most crashes it hardly makes any difference. The dangerous thing is putting a child into a car in the first place.

" I expect most crashes it hardly makes any difference. "

Yes, that's why the per-mile casualty rate has dropped more than ten fold over the past forty years, because seatbelts and airbags don't make any difference. That's why F1 has gone from being more dangerous than serving in RAF bomber command during 1943 to two deaths in the past twenty-five years and not even a serious injury in the past fifteen: all those pesky safety belts don't make any difference. It must be magic.

Cars are fantastically safer than they were a generation ago. Take your seatbelt off and not merely does all that improvement go out of the window, but a modern car is probably more dangerous without a seatbelt than an older one was, because in an accident there's all sorts of stuff going on which assumes that you're restrained.

Poppin - I think it is work putting the question to your daughter as she sounds so sensible.
e.g. "I know you don't want me to say anything to X's mum, but I have not been able to get out of my head the thought that she could do this again and one (or more) of your friends could die. If you still want me to keep quiet I will, but would you mind if I mentioned it?"
Or, find out when she is doing it again and report her to the police.

Onagar the only survivor was the driver who was wearing a seat belt. The others were thrown so far out of the car they were found in the fields around the lane. Clearly if they had been able to belt up they would have stood some chance.

The driver had already clipped another car and was unable to stop his car before he slammed another one, 300m down the road. If his car had not been overloaded with all those lads and weight, no doubt it would've been easier to stop. And frankly if you have a crash in a Passat and you are overloaded to that extent only a miracle will save you all.

I'd be fuming but your DD sounds incredibly sensible & told you about it so I think I would let it go for her benefit.

Your DD sounds very mature, I would be most proud.

tokyonambu, I'm not denying that belts etc have a value, but they are still extremely dangerous yes? even with the belts, bags and special car seats. Would you agree?

"I'm not denying that belts etc have a value"

vs

"I expect most crashes it hardly makes any difference."

by that I mean that if a car goes off a cliff, hits a brick wall at 90mph or burns up then it's not going to matter if you have the right belt or car seat.

While it isn't really what we were discussing does anyone have figures for what percentage of crashes they save lives in? Not in fast/bad ones and not in very mild/slow ones, but presumably some in the middle? I am just curious now. I expect the manufacturers make all sorts of claims for their product, but independent facts would be interesting.

In any case I mostly posted to offset the point of view that anyone who puts a child in a car without the right belt/seat whatever is totally evil.

It wasn't so long ago that everyone did this so while you may argue that the change is an improvement it doesn't make you hate your parents and the parents of others who did things differently before does it?

Given that the car is still very dangerous there may come a time when you are all despised for putting kids in them at all.

Walking across the road is dangerous but we still do that,with aids,traffic lights,and appropriate precautions,checking all directions as you walk in order to minimise the risk of being struck by a vehicle.

Everything has its dangers Our homes are fraught with dangers,,and but we can't avoid all risk.So we take appropriate precautions,or should,to minimise the risks.

"by that I mean that if a car goes off a cliff, hits a brick wall at 90mph or burns up then it's not going to matter if you have the right belt or car seat."

Yes, that's why high speed accidents in F1 these days kill just as many people as they did in the 1960s. No, hang on, wait a minute, what's that you're saying Sooty? "Fifteen drivers died in the 1950s; twelve in the 1960s; ten in the 1970s; four in the 1980s and two in the 1990s. No driver has suffered a fatal accident since 1994, making this the longest period in F1 history without a driver fatality."? Can that be right, what with the right belt or car seat not making any difference in high speed impacts or those involving fire?

" does anyone have figures for what percentage of crashes they save lives in? "

As it happens, yes. "The association between booster seat use and risk of death among motor vehicle occupants aged 4-8: a matched cohort study", Rice, TM et al, INJURY PREVENTION 15 (6): 379-383 DEC 2009. Nice and up to date, too. Concludes it's about three times safer to wear a seat belt and booster seat if you're aged 4 to 5, somewhat more than twice as safe if you're aged 6 to 8. There are some statistical issues (I don't have the full text available immediately) which I suspect stem from not many people aged 6 to 8 using booster seats, which explains the wider error bars on that. I'd call halving the death rate worthwhile, but you may of course disagree.

Results: Estimated death risk ratios for booster seats used with seatbelts were 0.33 (95% CI 0.28 to 0.40) for children age 4-5 years and 0.45 (0.31 to 0.63) for children aged 6-8 years (Wald test of homogeneity p

gosh we drove around like that all the time when we were kids however I wouldn't be happy with my DD travelling in car like that now.

Your DD sounds like she knows what's what and won't fall for that again. Very mature young lady. I would (try to) respect her wishes - it would be hard.

I did this millions of time as a child. So did all my friends, nobody ever died/was injured.

What's different now? There's certainly no more cars and those there are aren't going any faster round where I live than there were then.

"I did this millions of time as a child. So did all my friends, nobody ever died/was injured."

"The decline in the casualty rate, which takes into account the volume of traffic on the roads, has been much steeper. In 1967 there were 199 casualties per 100 million vehicle kilometres. By 2007 this had declined to 48 per 100 million vehicle kilometres."

www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1208

"What's different now? There's certainly no more cars"

"Motor vehicles travelled 499 billion kilometres in total on Great Britain?s roads in 2005. This was eight times more than in 1952. There was almost continuous growth until 1973. Since then the trend has continued upward, but annual changes have been more erratic."

www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=1096&Pos=4&ColRank=2&Rank=256

I was born in 1987, those statistics are not relevent.

tokyonambu, thanks for that. I'll google to find the actual study as I am curious. I will be especially interested to see how wearing a seat belt and booster seat still makes you safer even if the car burns out or has a ridiculously high speed impact with a stationary object.

I rather think the study will say that wearing one all the time means you increase your chances of surviving the other crashes not that it will magically make you safe in every possible accident.

However the real issue here has to be arresting those people putting children in cars. Clearly it's not 'safe' to do so therefore everyone who does put a child in a car is evil.

All the statistics will back me on this. All fatalities to passengers of cars happened if the passengers were inside the car. So next time you see one of these loons putting a child in one call the police, the social services and the daily mail at once.

A total of 121 children under 16 died on the roads (in 2007) down from 169 in 2006 and less than half the number killed each year during the mid 1990s.

I'd say halving the rate of deaths on the roads between when you were a child and today was worthwhile, wouldn't you?

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4219089.ece

I would

1. be proud if my daughter
2. keep quiet
3. ask next time someone offered a lift (and I don't mean to admonish you by saying this, but next time just ask what arrangements are and then you can decide).

On car seats by an independant org

How stuff works - the seat belt

But you don't know why deaths have halved. Hundreds if things about car and road safety and design have changed since then.

I'm not saying it's wrong to want to be safe, or that those changes haven't been beneficial - I'm saying you can't draw such specific conclusions about the safety of individual situations from vague data.

I agree with Indaba's comment especially her 3rd point.