Parents not having car seats for their children

[bicyclefish]

The other day I came out of the supermarket and saw a couple getting into their car with the lady in the back seat strapped in with a CHILD on her lap (less than a 2 year old) and a slightly older child (maybe 4 or 5 ) strapped in but with no child seat or even a booster. I went across to them and told them in what was probably an overly abrupt manner that they should under no circumstances do what they were doing and that i was taking his number down and reporting him. He told me to F off and that he was 'only going up the road anyway'. Oh right thats ok then, accidents never happen on the short trip back from the supermarket... ahem..a little wound up by his lack of care for the people in his care i then told him that if he got back into his car and tried to drive away i would physically stand in front of it and sue him for assault if he drove into me... I know, i know..
upshot is, he got the family back out and went home and got the car seats that they did actually own but didn't see fit to put into the car..FFS
AIBU or should i have minded my own business?

train, bus or coach, obviously.

friday16 - most of us are not 'fortunate' enough to live outside of a bus depot or railways station and even though I do live a not too far walk from the train station, I've not seen any train time tables with stops at tesco/morrisons/waitrose/lidl etc...or did i miss your point?
Again.

friday16 - you are aware of the appalling lack of public transport in rural areas I trust?

The flaw in your logic, Friday, is the assumption that public transport is available. Once you get out of cities, local public transport is rarely of any practical use. If I used the bus to get to work with a stop at DD's it would take 2 hours. It's 4 miles down the road and takes 10 mins by car. Public transport may be safer but the logistics often render it a useless option.

But if you really care about your child's safety, you would research this and choose to live near public transport.

most of us are not 'fortunate' enough to live outside of a bus depot or railways station

Public transport may be safer but the logistics often render it a useless option.

But if you really cared about safety, enough to (say) screech at people in carparks, wouldn't you move house to make your child ten times safer (or, more accurately, fifteen times safer). I mean, if the two-fold difference in death rates from using car seats is so important as to justify blocking people's cars, imagine how selfish people are who make travel fifteen times more dangerous when they could move house and avoid all that risk?

Or could it be, just possibly, that everyone makes the risk tradeoffs they're happy with, and should in general leave other people to get on with it?

Fridays right, if OP cares that passionately she would only travel by public transport or not at all leave the house just to be doubly sure. Doesn't she care about the children?

Loving the irony of OP and other posters complaining that It would be impractical for them to reduce risk to their DC by not driving - whilst simultaneously slating others (including a blind person FFS) for being in situations where it is impractical for them to have a car seat in a taxi.

Unbelievable hypocrisy but wonderfully amusing.

The other day

FYI this was before the 101 number was set up some years ago

YABU it's none of your business, you should have reported to police if you were that concerned, but instead you came off as an interfering busy body that wanted to try and make your judgement heard I would have told you just as loudly where to go people that act like that make me cringe, I would hate someone to approach me with that attitude! !

Doesn't anybody care about the children?

YWNU to be concerned but you should have discreetly taken their number and reported it to the police and ket them deal with it (there are possibly cameras showing the car park and police may have had or get other reports about the same car)

I know you didn't feel intimidated by the man and you are right in saying they shouldn't have been doing it but you just never know how people will react in these situations.

Bicyclefish "most of us are not 'fortunate' enough to live outside of a bus depot or railways station and even though I do live a not too far walk from the train station, I've not seen any train time tables with stops at tesco/morrisons/waitrose/lidl etc...or did i miss your point?"

And many are not fortunate enough to be able to afford a car and cars seats available for every trip so have to make do and sometimes make an odd trip in a taxi or friends car etc. like most I use car seats, there have been a few times we have been caught out though.

BumbleChum - as the OP i have to point out that i have not been hypocritical in my posts so i would ask you to not cast aspersions in my direction for this.
Further, i don't think anyone is slating ANYONE for doing as much as possible in the circumstances given to protect their DC's it is the times when (all too frequently) that parents knowingly and wantonly disregard their DC's safety through apathy, selfishness and just plain lazyness. Those are the times and people that I and others on the post have issue with. I made a call on the circumstances at the time and at the time i thought I WNBU. some aspects, in retrospect, i would probably change now, but I do still feel that the premise for the interference in the first place is one i would react to again, albeit maybe not in the same degree.
I didn't come here for pats on the back nor kicks in the teeth, i came for opinions so to the posters with an agenda of trolling and creating problems where they don't exist, sorry to disappoint

Maryz - please read the full thread before making glib comments.
Therein you will find your answer and maybe prevent yourself from looking petty and foolish

Maryz - his excuse reason for not having them in the first place was that he only lived a few minutes away, to which i replied that it would only take him a couple of minutes to go get them and make his children safer then wouldn't it?
Yeah i know this is going to create another barage of WDYTYA, so bring it on, I've had my coffee....

This is a huge, huge, YABU.

Had I been the driver, you would have got the same response from me. Further, had you refused to move, I would have asked df to move the car out and I would have physically restrained you if need be. Or, edged the car out by inches so that you HAD to move.

I am actually hugely shocked by your response. What right do you have to stop people driving away?

You are not the car seat police. Get over yourself.

GangstersLoveToDance - O.K. I'm over myself.
Thanks hugely.

i hate it when people sit with their kids on their laps. they should all be made to re study the laws of physics

How can you fail to see how stupid, overbearing and downright inappropriate your actions were?

If you are that concerned, take the numberplate and report to the police. Do not crown yourself as some sort of children's car safety champion and put yourself in such a dangerous position.

If it is true, you are ridiculous.

GangstersLoveToDance - ok i get it, THANKS!
Your words of concern for my safety are a little lost in the words of abuse and mis-placed personal anger towards me but, again, I get how you feel.
Yours ridiculously in truth,
Me

FYI - GangstersLoveToDance ref: "I would have asked df to move the car out and I would have physically restrained you if need be" - that constitutes assault, for which i would have had you arrested and pressed charges. Way to look the big man you neanderthal.