I complained this woman and it may result in the police being called..

[Fisharefriendsnotfood]

Dropping the kids to nursery this morning I saw a woman leave her dc aged about 4 in the car while she brought younger dc in to nursery. She left the car window open and the engine running!!!

I nearly said something but she looked so angry I chickened out though. So, this afternoon I had a word with nursery manager about it and she said that she saw this herself one day last week and had a word with the mother but obviously nothing has changed.

Nursery manager is going to have another word and failing that we agreed that the police should probably be informed.

So, am I an interferring old cow? Car out of sight and mum gone about 5 mins.

Did I ever mention wasting police time if the engine wasn't running? stranded

The thing is, the police have seen the few, but traumatic cases where a car has been stolen, or has exploded. They have NOT seen the thousands and thousands of times when neither of those things happened. So their evaluation of the risk is skewed. But I wouldn't argue with them.

Leaving the car engine running increases the small risk. It's not a risk I'd be willing to take.

Having seen the photos of my colleagues car after he left his 3 year old in the car whilst he popped into the house to grab his phone, I'd report it too. His son, unstrapped himself (something he'd never done before) climbed into the front, played with the handbrake and managed to take it off causing the car, albeit slowly, to roll into their garage door, small child thankfully unscathed but the car was a mess. Colleague says he was gone less than 2 mins.

It's not about wasting police time - it'll take them 2 minutes to put the frights in this mum so she never does it again.

Then, hopefully, police time won't be wasted in the future when they get called to the scene of an accident caused when a child who was left unattended in a car for 5 mins with the engine running took the handbrake off and crashed.