To think a quick headcount on getting back into the car is not too difficult to remember?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

BBC news story here. A family left their 3yo at a motorway service station and didn't notice that she wasn't in the car for 2 hours. How? Poor little kid. Hope she's all right now.

Feckless idiots

Didn't they realize the empty car seat or acknowledge that child hadn't been strapped in?

They didn't even notice she was missing until they heard it on the radio. Shocking!

There has to be more to this, surely. In the 70s when children were sometimes rammed into the boot I could see how this might have happened but now?

Absolutely ridiculous, no excuse at all.

Bizarre.

Yes - am looking at you David Cameron.

When dd was new born I left her out side a shop by accident and walked all the way home. I only realised when I went to unpack the shopping under her pram. I've never run do fast in my whole life. She was fast asleep.

It can happen

It happened in France. Presumably the laws on child seats etc are very similar there?

[I'm not a driver]

I was reading that story. Couldn't quite believe anyone could really be that daft! Surely when they were getting the other kids in they'd have seen the empty seat?
I was going to say - didn't the other siblings notice as well? But then I remembered just how much my elder siblings hated me when I was small. They'd probably keep shtum on purpose.

Ridiculous! I don't understand how they didn't even notice !

We left DS2 on the sofa and went out once. We were packing bags and stuff in the car. Each assumed the other had put him in.
Only took 5 minutes to realise but I'm not going to throw virtual stones.

Not quite the same, Glittery, though! You were one person with one child and it was all new to you and you were probably short of sleep and you realised immediately and ran back.

This family comprised one father and one mother (presumably) and two older children. Not one of them notice for over two hours that their 3yo was not in the car!

It's been a long time since I had a 3yo but they're not noted for being quiet, are they?

The only way I can imagine it happening is if there were two or more cars travelling in convoy and everyone thought the little girl was in another car.

The parents didn't notice.

The older siblings didn't notice.

Odd.

Home alone was a real life story y'know....

Convoy explanation might work, Line.

Twats. Poor child must have been so scared. Wtf are wrong with some people.

3 year old are really annoying, how can you not notice that you are missing one, poor kid.

This isn't the same parents who let their baby float out to sea is it?

I was . But then what if both parents were strapping in other children? Both thought the other had strapped the little girl in. My children all go really quiet on long jorneys, I sometimes check to see how many men are down when it goes so quiet. I admit it is A LONG way to go though without noticing or seeing if she was asleep or in fact actually in the car!!

3 yos don't shut up! I guess they were French though so maybe different but how did the older siblings not notice and say anything?!

When I was a rep I did my usual coach check after my last drop off at 3am.
Found a 3yo asleep on the back seat!
I knew what family had been there and where they were staying so we went back. They were in the biggest fluster as I carried sleeping child into reception.

There's something that doesn't add up with this story though.

glittery my dad did exactly the same thing as you to me. Went to the shops, left me outside in the pram fast asleep, walked home with the bags thinking "I'm sure I've forgotten something, i m fairly certain I went out with more baggage" the penny dropped at the front door that the thing he had left was his newborn daughter half a mile away and to this day also claims that he's never run so fast in his life. (I don't think he told my mum for about three weeks!