To have told this dad off at the petrol station.

[Duckingella]

A car pulled up next to the pump where my DH was filling the car.

My jaw dropped when I saw inside of it;3 small children,no seat belts,no car seats and one sitting in the front.

I got out of the car and lost my shit with their twat of a father;he at least put their seat belts on before pulling off.

Gobsmacked doesn't even cover it;how can anyone be so damn reckless with their children's safety;I normally wouldn't confront someone like that but I just couldn't leave it.

Yes it's risky but in some circumstances legal.
From gov.uk..

Fucking hell...

Emergency or not, if he had time to stop and fill up the car there was time to put seatbelts on.

@Seddon they may have only taken the seatbelts off while the car was not moving and sat in the petrol station.
People are told not to leave children alone in the car while they pay for petrol so they would have had to undo the seatbelts to get out the car to pay.

It was reasonable to do that but a complete waste of time unless you also took down the numberplate and reported it. If the man does not care about his childrens safety how many shits will he give about a telling off from a random?

All the "mind your own business" responses are baffling. When a child dies in a preventable tragedy after people turned a blind eye to evident negligent behaviour or worse the outcry is why did no one say something/do something/report them/challenge them.

You are unreasonable to lose your shit. That is not how you win people over or educate people so that they might make changes. If you wanted to say something, saying it in a normal manner would have been more likely to get you heard. All he probably remembers of the encounter is you ranting rather than hearing your message.

You're also unreasonable because you don't know what he is like and he could have turned around and assaulted you. Report to the appropriate authorities instead.

Really? Where defenceless children are concerned and the person meant to protect them isn’t doing so?

@Pinkespressomachine maybe the reason the children were in the car was they were being driven to a safe place to remove them from a dangerous situation and therefore were being very much "protected"?
We don't know.
The OP didn't know.
She should have called the police if concerned.
But you don't go around "losing your shit" at random people in public.

Yes, and that's called hindsight. With hindsight anything can be prevented.

Living is about risk and as a parent or guardian it is the responsibility of the person with whom the OP lost their shit with to decide which risks to take with their children. Whether they, their friends and social group, or indeed the law would agree with that persons choice is again, none of anyone else's business.

Child protection is everyone’s business.

Would you advocate ignoring someone beating their toddler with a stick in their front garden because it doesn’t affect you?

On this occasion, OP protected this man with having to think about the beauty of hindsight. She gave him foresight, he strapped his kids in, so on that particular journey they were less likely to die. No need for hindsight, at least not until tomorrow.

I like to think we live in a society where people protect the vulnerable. If someone is jeopardising the life of someone who is unable to keep themselves safe, I would like to think that in a civilised society someone would intervene.

I don't believe that the children were physically harmed by their parent/guardians actions.

Since child protection is such an emotive subject for you, and you believe that holistically it's everyone's responsibility, Would you advocate ignoring someone feeding their child at McDonalds, putting them on a theme park ride or enrolling them into state school ?

By the same omission neither is child abuse.....

I see this all the time.....

Today I saw a lady drive and her kid was in the front seat and clearly not belted.

Police don't do anything either.

I disagree.

@Efficaciou5 so allowing your child to not wear a seat belt is child isn't child abuse?

Absolutely not.

Buying your obese child a meal at McDonalds isn't child abuse ?

Sending your child to a state school rife with bullying and substandard teaching isn't child abuse ?

I wonder if the OP would go inside and "lose her shit" if she walked past her local fast food joint and saw a family of fatties chomping on burgers ? .... After all, child protection is everyone's business, right ?

There is nutrition in that meal though.

No nutrition or any benefit in not wearing a seat belt

With an emergency stop at the petrol station? That doesn’t sound like much of an emergency to me.

There’s a “rushing your floppy meningitic child to hospital” emergency, and there’s “oh damn I wanted to go to the supermarket tonight but it’s my weekend with the kids and my ex refused to give me her car seats and told me to buy my own” emergency. Only the first kind is an excuse for not wearing a seatbelt. Lack of foresight on the driver’s part doesn’t cut it.