Children playing on street after dark

[seasidewitchtits]

Ok, bear with me, I'm not against children playing on the street. But now the evenings are drawing in small kids of 4/5years old are playing outside in the dark. We live on a street of terraces with cars parked either side. The kids obviously aren't wearing any kind of reflective garments. They're running in and out between the cars and riding their bikes down the road. Their parents are inside.

And I'm absolutely petrified of hitting one of them with my car.

AIBU to be concerned about this?

Yanbu but I'm not sure what you can do about it.

Drive slower, at 5mph, there is almost no chance of you hitting one, and unless you carried driving, very little chance of any life changing injuries.

Oh I do drive very slowly, trust me. But I'm not the only person that drives down my street...

Some of my happiest memories are of playing outside at dusk when I was a child.

We need to accept that it is no longer the 70s or 80s and the nostalgia of our lives then has nothing to do with the world now

All you can do is to drive v slowly and carefully. How others drive is not in your hands.On a double parked road people should be driving v slowly anyway and it's not right that kids are forced inside because of adult laziness.

Older kids, fine. But 4 year olds?

Weird responses on this thread..

Do people really think its OK for reception-aged children to be playing out unsupervised, and riding bikes in the road?

4 year olds are just finished being toddlers I don't know why their parents think it is ok for them to be playing out unsupervised

I understand your fears OP. Sadly I don’t think others will until the worst happens.

When we moved to our new estate I was struck by how road aware the kids are, they stop their bikes to let cars out of driveways, they don’t hare around in the middle of the road, they play in the fields and open spaces.

Then I discovered that a little boy, 5, was killed on my street by a pick up with bull bars years ago and the parents all consciously drummed road safety into their kids.

Letting 4 year olds play out in the road without watching should be classed as neglect.

Yanbu It’s common where I live and we have loads of work vans around at the moment. It worries me

YANBU. Even in day light the risk is huge. Hopefully no children will suffer because their parents are too lazy to parent them properly, you know supervising them, actually engaging with them and so on.