To report this mum to the police - let my DD ride without a seatbelt

[YourFinestPantaloons]

DD (9) attends football and another mum from school (whose DD also is part of the club) offered to take them to football practice after school tonight.

I said yes, and had no reason not to trust her, I'd taken her DD before. I said shall I leave a car seat at school reception - she said no, they have a spare they will bring.

It turns out that not only did they forget the spare car seat, the seatbelt in the back (middle) wasn't working. She was giving another child a lift, meaning 4 children in total (including her 2 DC) were in the car. She made DD, as the oldest, sit in the middle in the back and drove 5 miles with no seatbelt on and no car seat.

I'm absolutely furious. I rang her after DD grassed and she said they were running late and didn't want to call me at work and couldn't think of another way to get to football, and it's '5 miles of quiet road'.

WIBU to report her to the police or should I calm down? I'm so angry, I would not be going to football if this was me, they'd have to skip a week, I can't believe she put my DD at risk.

Some very odd posts on this thread indeed! Apparently it's fine to behave recklessly and negligently as long as you don't get caught/nothing happens Seatbelts are the most basic of basic car safety rules. I wouldn't dream of taking DD anywhere without being strapped in, and if I wouldn't do it for my own child then I sure as hell wouldn't do it when someone else had entrusted their child to me.

I don't think I'd call the police but DD wouldn't be going in that car again. I don't care if the risk is small. It's a completely unnecessary risk I'm not going to take with the most important thing in the world to me.

Having seen the kind of injuries received at relatively low speeds when people weren't wearing seatbelts, it's just an absolute no-brainer. 'We did it in the 80s and lived' is an idiotic argument. People put babies down to sleep on their fronts in the 80s and SIDS rates were massively higher. We know better now and we do better (or at least I hope most of us do as parents).

@Remmy123

9 year olds do not need car seats surely??

Hopefully not posted by someone with a child of an age to need a car seat.

[quote timestheyarechanging]@bookworm
Completely agree!
Kids riding bikes- yep my son (aged 11) and ending up needing several stitches in his knee. Took his helmet off as soon as he knew I was out of sight. He's 16 now and doesn't even remember it being remotely scary.
Daughter fell off her pony (aged 10) wearing body and head protection - am I a bad mum?
Son broke his collar bone playing football - I don't blame his coach.
At the park - swing fell back into my nephews face whilst I was looking after him and knocked a tooth out - thankfully my sister didn't grass me to the police!
[/quote]
How anyone thinks this is the same as riding in the car without a seatbelt is genuinely beyond me

@timestheyarechanging

Essentially - do not let your child go in the car again if you're worried about her car situation. Job done. No harm done.

No need to make, what was probably a very stressed woman, feel bad when she's trying to help others out- she probably feels bad enough now you've berated her.

I hope she does feel bad! She should

@Remmy123

9 year olds do not need car seats surely??

Yes, they do if they are under 4'4". Many links have been posted with the info as to why

@Kitkat151

Huge apologies. I made a mistake when typing and it autocorrected. I meant to reply to
Katyppp
She was the poster talking about doing a risk assessment as if it was a genuine choice whether to wear a seatbelt or not.

Oh don't be silly @fatbettyinthecoop.

[quote FatBettyintheCoop]@Kitkat151

Huge apologies. I made a mistake when typing and it autocorrected. I meant to reply to
Katyppp
She was the poster talking about doing a risk assessment as if it was a genuine choice whether to wear a seatbelt or not.

[/quote]
Apologies accepted

@timestheyarechanging but all the things you list are accidents- so do not compare at all to the scenario in the op

Loved how it was fine for her to take the risk with someon elses child-if its so minimal why not put her own child in the middle

Do you know how fucking ridiculous you sound with these posts? You are making a complete twat of yourself...... 5 minutes without a seat belt can be a death sentence

Indeed. Perhaps we need to bring back the “clunk click every trip” campaign. let’s forget it was Saville who did the ads

OP you have been ranting away here for three days now but you still haven't answered the basic question:

What do actually expect the police to do?

OP you have been ranting away here for three days now but you still haven't answered the basic question:

What do actually expect the police to do?

A very quick search will not only find the answer to this but also that OP said she wouldn’t be reporting.