Apart from anything it’s just not very nice to abandon your young kids in the cos they’d be more hassle to take with you.
I have left mine for a few mins when younger when I’ve been parked outside the shop. And in other situations I’ve weighed up risks and acted accordingly. But it it’s acting in such a way that your child might feel scared or worried if an out of the ordinary, not necessarily unsafe thing happened, then you don’t do it! (Well, quite a lot would on here).
so for example, multi-storey car park. Car reversed into theirs. Gentle bump but the kids would be scared. One kid gets sick - not nice for both of them.
siren or alarm goes off somewhere. They wouldn’t know what the hell it meant or what to do.
Dad takes longer than he tells them to come back. Kids get worried.
Stranger approaches the car and starts knocking on the window. May be someone nice, maybe someone they think might do then harm.
Temperature in car goes up slightly. are they able to get out if they’re too hot? Are windows electric so won’t sork without key in ignition? Kids start to feel sick and overheated.
So none of them causing death. But all causing worry and discomfort with no-one around to ask for help like in a busier place like say, a shopping centre, where if something happened they could be taught to go and ask “a nice person in uniform working on the tills”.
I was shocked when my brother-In-law left their 3 year old in a hotel bedroom and then came down to finish his night with us unimpeded by babysitting. No baby listening or monitors. It was a hot night and he’d left the window open but calculated that the gap probably wasn’t wide enough for her to get through and window too heavy to push up. “Probably”, he joked. the next morning he said that she hadn’been to sleep till they came to bed later as she was frightened on her own in a strange place with no-one to call for help if she needed it. No shit, Sherlock!
Kids get scared on their own left for a while when it’s not in their own home. A kid in pyjamas arrived at the table next to us in a fancy hotel restaurant abroad once. He wasn’t that young, probably about 8-9 but had obviously been dumped in his room and left by his knob of a father so he could have dinner with his girlfriend inencumbered by his son. (he had treated all the staff appallingly before this and was just a loud, rich, entitled, self-absorbed bellend in everything he was saying or doing)
This kid had come in a long walk from the hotel next door in his PJs through a security compound with a security man with a gun. Was clearly upset. The parents berated him and then barely tolerated him. Ordered him chicken SAR-tayyy then when it came shouted at the chef that it wasn’t good enough “Daniel has had chicken SARtayy all over the world and this is not how it is supposed to be.” Daniel was perfectly happy with his food but his stupid dad wanted to kick up a fuss and have the staff ingratiating themselves licking his boots. Which they did.
What a massive knob. I was young and so was DH. We wish we’d said something st the time about his crappy parenting skills and lousy way of speaking to people.
Some people are just generally not that thoughtful towards others and won’t put themselves out. it’s not a question of asking yourself “is this car likely to spontaneously combust or not?” How silly t think just comes down to weighing up the risks.