To still be shocked by what I saw!!

[Newname71]

I was on my weekly Saturday outing with DM. Checking my rear view mirror and I had to do a double take!! Car behind me, female driver with L plates on the car. Male front seat passenger had a little girl sat on his knee! She looked about 18 months old! Said to DM, just check I’m not seeing things!! Nope, I wasn’t! Pulled over and reported to 101, I honestly can’t believe there are people out there that stupid and reckless!

FFS - what makes you assume they were born in a 'less developed country'?

And I bet I'm older than you - I often travelled in the footwell and rolling about in the back of my uncle's van - and I'm very glad that we now have laws enforcing seatbelt use

It was common to do this and it was also more common to die in road traffic accidents. The period you talk about around 7000 people died a year on UK roads. Now it's around 2000, with twice as many cars on the road. So it is shocking to put a child at a known risk of death and people should be shocked when people do it.

I'm with you too OP but get ready for the batshit crazy vipers who think you need to mind your own, that they might have had SEN or autism or something and lots and lots of 'whataboutery'.

Car safety for small children, no matter the sex 🙄 is a big deal and people get it wrong all the fucking time.

Well done for being that child's advocate, op. It's a shame you're getting so much abuse for being concerned over the illegal and down right dangerous treatment of a tiny human who is unable to do anything about it!

I was stopped at lights years ago when the car next to me had a toddler roaming about in the back. I rolled the window to let the driver (mother?) know and her response was “she doesn’t like seat belts”

22 year old me just rolled my window back up but 42 year old me would have said “I don’t give a fuk get your kid belted or I’m reporting you”

wish I had

One of the million not great things people do that potentially could go horribly wrong.

But I wouldn’t be shocked or report it.

No, it's illegal unless it's an emergency (unplanned and necessary) e.g. taking child to hospital, or stranded and can't get home any other way, and even in this emergency case it needs to be over as short a distance as possible.

And you should at least sit in the back to be sensible. (Not law, just common sense).

Giving someone a driving lesson isn't an emergency, so would be very unlikely to meet the emergency criteria.

I reported someone for a similar thing once...a young girl sitting with a baby on her lap in the front seat.
I got the reg and a photo of the jeep, but they went whizzing off up the dual carriageway to goodness knows where, so doubt police caught them tbh, or even tried (the woman didn't seem to take it too seriously on the phone....she asked me 'could it have been a doll')
I mean come on, I do know the difference between a fake and a real baby! 😏

Do you feel the same about all lawbreaking? Endangering the life of a child just fine then?

There's no lol here.

Children die in RTCs when not restrained.

My paramedic son found a dead child a couple of hundred yards down the road. Hadn't been strapped in.

Where's the lol there?

I’d rather “waste police time” than a child go through a windscreen

nothing like this shocks me anymore... i may take a double take.. i may even comment on it too any other persons in the car, but i doubt it would bother me that much that i rang the police to report it ?

i hope you gave them the registration of the car, the colour and the make and you rang it in immediately? do you have dash cam footage of the offence?

sadly YES there are people out there that stupid and reckless...

oh gosh this triggered a childhood memory for me: 1 driver, and dad in the front, mum and 3 sisters on the back seat, me and other sister and dog in the boot with a blanket to throw over if we saw a police man... all in a robin reliant! we all had to get out and walk when we got to the big hill on the way to scarborough!! blimey... thats one hell of a memory for me... thanks

https://www.facebook.com/nathanwpyle2

Nathan W Pyle would do that well.

Probably not during a driving lesson though!

No one said it was a driving lesson? But yes I agree, I’m just saying I’m shocked to know it’s not actually illegal!

One of my dad's relatives in the 1970s. Dad was driving, mum in passenger seat with a child on her knee. I don't think either were wearing seat belts.

Child fell asleep so mum put him on the back seat.

The dog took the place of the child.

Mum woke up in hospital. The dog had been killed going through the windscreen.

Fortunately both parents and child recovered fully.

@Rabbitsarebraver

The 'L' plates indicate it was a driving lesson.

Wouldn’t occur to me to ring the police. Would assume they’d meet a traffic cop somewhere.

people are idiots, but what they were doing isn’t actually illegal, so police wouldn’t be interested.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the level of knowledge and expertise on mumsnet, and then you read threads like this and think, my god.... 1 child in the UK is killed or seriously injured in RTAs in the UK every 17 hours (Research from Brake, The Road Safety Charity).
Just because lots of idjits do it doesn't mean that you are somehow misguided or overly dramatic for being shocked and reporting it.

It's legal to sit with an 18month old with no car seat in the front of a car? @IAmThe1AndOnly

You were absolutely right to report OP.

I can't believe the replies telling you to mind your own business! We all have a duty of care to children in our society. And trying to prevent a child from flying through a windscreen, head first onto a road is the right thing to do. Yeah you couldn't stop them from being idiots right there and then, but hopefully the police caught them, had a word and it will put them off in future.

I'm with you OP. I'd be shocked. But on a daily basis I see things that amount to tremendous stupidity and have to remind myself that some people are totally clueless.

You're not wrong to be concerned, disgusted etc but I'm not sure why you are shocked. It happens all the time, have you never seen people driving dangerously before? But good on you for reporting it of course, I hope mothing bad happened.
You'd really be shocked if you went to India. Entire families plus the family dog and a couple of chickens ride a single moped over there. I'm not exaggerating. Such a culture shock and then you come back to the UK and (rightly) carefully strap your child into a properly installed car seat.
Perhaps this couple weren't local and weren't use to the safety rules here.

I’ve done this occasionally with both children as babies when they’ve been absolutely hysterical in their car seats.