Would you put a 10 year old in a taxi alone?

[Himitsu]

My daughter has a club she really loves however my husbands hours have changed which means he’s is now at work. I won’t have time to go home and collect her and take her to her club before then going to collect my younger one from nursery.

Trying to think of ways to get her there! Would you feel comfortable with this?

No, I have never put them in a taxi, not even the 13 year old now.

No i wouldn't as a regular thing.

I don't think a taxi will take a lone 10 year old anyway.

Can you go straight to nursery with 10 year old being a little bit late? Or does that not work?

I cannot put into words quite how much I would NOT do this.

No fucking way! Taxis probably won’t take U16s without an adult anyway.

Because all men are paedophiles? Of course, that makes total sense. They are all waiting to collect an unaccompanied 10 y/o, and obviously ignore the fact that the journey will be logged. It is no different from a 10 y/o being the first to be picked up or the last to be dropped off by bus.

You’ll struggle to find a taxi company to take her.

We couldn’t find any company willing to take our DD when we got funding for her to attend a club. Not even the company that take her to school everyday would do it!

I thought taxis couldn't take under 18s unless it was a school taxi?

Where is she and who with between finishing school and you getting home, could they help?

You want to put your young child in a car alone with a complete stranger? Are you really asking this?

Amazed at the assumption that if you "beg" lifts, that's absolutely safe for your child .
Obviously other parents can't possibly be abusers.

No, not all men are paedophiles. Who said that they are? But the perpetrators of sexual abuse are overwhelmingly male and predators often go into jobs that provide them with easy access to their victims.

The journey being ‘logged’ doesn’t mean a whole lot. If something bad were to happen, it doesn’t take a huge stretch of imagination to think of some of the threats that a predator may make to a child to stop them telling anyone- ‘I know where you live, if you tell anyone I’ll hurt your family’.

I don’t make risk assessments in relation to my children only based on the likelihood of something happening, I also taken into account the level of harm that could occur.

I doubt you'll find a taxi company to take her anyway, she's too young.

My 11yo used a taxi everyday for a week when they did an induction to high school in the summer holidays, literally weeks before he had to start catching two buses across the city for school. I worry more about him catching the bus, even now in year 10.

Do you know any reliable 6th formers or teenage babysitters who would accompany her - in a taxi or on the bus? Obviously comes with extra cost.

Interesting. I ordered an Uber one morning for my child when the bus to school didn’t turn up. They took her to school (age 11, year 7).

Wouldn’t dream of it.

Would this be allowed? I wanted to put my son and daughter in an Uber but it wasn't allowed and they are older

Only with a regular female taxi driver as statistically females are safer

There’s one in my area called lady driver, it’s very much a one woman taxi service. She has a pvg ( Scotland ) and does school taxi driving. I’d trust her to get my 9yo twins from A to B. Maybe ask around locally.

As others have said if it was a taxi driver approved for taking school children.

Or a female driver?

I’ve booked taxis for my 13 year old son and told them that in the booking notes and they’ve been ok with it. Must vary by taxi company or maybe just at discretion of the driver. I pay on my card so there’s no risk he wouldn’t pay.

My kids get a taxi to and from school every day, provided by the council. It’s just a local taxi firm they use and I trust those drivers. I know they’ve gone through disclosure Scotland, and are deemed safe to be with the kids and I also know them a bit. I’ve met one of the driver’s wives! So, if my kids ever need a taxi without me, that’s the company I call. Usually I can get one of the people who drives my kids from school but if not, I know all the drivers are used on school runs (you can’t book this company during the school run times because all drivers are used) so are all safe as we can be sure.

Find out which company does the school run for your area, and book them?

Hire a baby sitter

Since when was that a rule? I started going to Glasgow on the train at weekends with my mates from the age of 12. We’d get the train home, be too lazy to walk from the train station so would all jump in a taxi at the taxi rank. Never got turned away!