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!

Unless the police catch them how can they anything? They can’t mind read or look in to their crystal ball to find these irresponsible people

Not on your lap it isn’t legal. They have to wear an adult seatbelt but sit on the seat themselves

No it’s against the law.

If no car seat child sits on seat with adult seatbelt on

The basics of child seat law

A child must never be carried on your lap. A single seatbelt should never be used for two passengers. A child must sit in a car seat until they are 12 years old or 4'5" tall, depending on which comes first. The seat can be front-facing if the child is older than 15 months.

If a child restraint is not available, children under 3 years must travel in the rear, but may be unrestrained. Children 3 years and over, up to 135cm tall must sit in the rear and use an adult seat belt.

Wow, this thread has brought out some bitchiness in people!

OP, I’d also have been shocked to see this, particularly in the UK. I lived overseas for a while and saw similar things there on a semi regular basis but it still horrified me, particularly as that country had an appalling road safety record. I would definitely have been surprised to see it in the UK as road safety is taken much more seriously here.

I’m not sure what the statistics are re fatal / serious car accidents / children going through windows but it feels like every other poster on this thread has had direct experience of it. Fatal car crashes aren’t actually all that common.

That’s true but I do feel like I have seen more than my fair share including driving past one a couple of days ago in which a 15 year old boy was driving and crashed and rolled a stolen car. He was thrown 50 meters from the car because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He was taken to hospital and died the following day.

*technically, I drove past the aftermath, the road was closed for hours after the incident but the scene was visible from an adjacent road

Go back a bit further and we sent kids up chimneys. The 80’s are a generation ago, just because we did, doesn’t mean we still should.

It’s crazy that people do this. You wouldn’t balance your best China tea set on your lap in a car so why do it with a child.

@Newname71 You absolutely did the right thing.
The level of stupidity on this thread is quite staggering.

I am glad you reported it, they clearly did not care about their child's safety, at all.

And that's the kind of attitude that allows children to be seriously hurt!

I would have done the same. When I was out with the family a few years ago we spotted a family when in a petrol station where the mother was travelling with the baby in her arms, in the passenger seat. My husband also called it in to the non emergency number.

From what I remember they said they'd be paying them a visit to talk about car safety and what needed to be done as that is illegal - so it's not like you're giving them a criminal record or doing it out of some sort of spite! You're just hopefully doing something which means an intervention is made for the future and that child will then be safe.

It’s kinda funny reading your post because we lived overseas last year (in two countries on two continents) and saw this kind of thing ALL the time. It’s amazing how quickly you just get used to it being normal and wouldn’t bat an eye!! People have a different relationship to life and risk. Social norms conditioning is crazy strong… We were taking our kids around on motorbikes before too long 😬😅

But yeah, here it is a dereliction of safety and care. These days I’m back to insisting seatbelts are secured before we set off, even though the roads are so much safer.

Reminds me of when DH and I moved back to Cape Town for a few years. I was horrified that the default setting seemed to be children standing between the front seats of a car or sitting on the knee of an adult in the front seat, or even worse sitting on the back of a utility. I rang the equivalent of 101 and they literally told me to go away for being a crazy person. I found out a few months later that our family were not bothering using the DSs car seats when left with them. Their excuse was that they had been putting the seatbelt over both adult and each boy. One sat on a lap in the front seat and one on a lap in the back. The boys were 3 and 18mos.

It is possible these people hail from a country where car safety is just not a priority.

Worst thing I ever saw was when I was on a bus in the Netherlands. Because my seat was high I could see straight into a large lorry travelling past us. The driver was leaning back and steering the lorry with his feet. I would say he was almost asleep.

@Rocknrolla21 what if you heard on the news or read in the paper that there’d been a crash and a toddler had been killed? They can’t help having really bloody stupid parents. Would you then be wishing you’d done something different?
Personally I know I can’t live with the guilt of stuff like that - so I’d do whatever I could, am
diligent about safeguarding referrals at work if I’m even a bit unsure - for the just in case etc. (I think I do sit a bit unhealthy side of anxious so am not asking in a nasty way - more wondering)

How is it? How is me ringing the police after the fact going to stop that child being hurt? If I saw a child being hurt by a parent I would (and have) ring social services, if I saw an accident I would ring the police. But in this specific incident there is nothing I could do that would stop it in the moment.

I suppose she was simply describing the occupants.

Over the years DH & I have reported several drivers for not securing children properly. Occasionally the police call us back to say they called on the registered keeper and discussed the law with them. No prosecution obviously as there was no evidence.

I too see this, before they get to A&E, and many other traumatic things. I have had to build the resilience and the ability to compartmentalise in order to cope with my role. If my colleagues and I don't we could easily make ourselves ill at dwelling on how shocking it is.
I have known a few recently who over time have been so shocked they have moved away from the role to one where they are not exposed to it.
Awful things happen, people do shocking things. You do need to protect yourself a little or it does very much effect you, you will know this.

Maybe I have become to hardened to it yes but if I didn't it would effect me to the point of not doing my role. If I allowed to be shocked every time things happened at work I'd feel like the op every day at work.