Young child caused accident on pavement

[Senso]

AIBU to think that young children should not be allowed to be in charge of a pushchair on the pavement?

I was witness to an incident that happened on a busy street where a young child, aged around 8 was pushing a pushchair - occupied by a toddler - too fast, and collided with another pedestrian.

the injured person had been walking at a normal pace in the opposite direction but the child just charged straight into her causing her to fall and sustain quite a nasty impact injury.

The parents didn’t seem to get that the child had caused the accident, instead repeating that it was “just an accident, no-one was to blame”

i think otherwise.

It really IS a big deal for someone older, with more fragile bones, @Backedoffhackedoff. Not only the injury itself, but the pain and shock from it.

When I was a nurse, I saw so many elderly women whose lives were devastated by a simple fall that caused a fractured hip. Some died. Some had surgery and then died. Some survived the surgery but developed dementia due to the shock of the injury and the surgery, and never walked or lived independently again. Some did OK - but, in my recollection, the bad or poor outcomes outweighed the good ones. Even when the outcome was good, not all the ladies got back to their previous, fully independent lives.

Of course, a younger person, with nice, tough bones, can easily throw off a fall, but elderly people can and do suffer serious consequences after apparently simple falls.

Your thread title is so misleading. The child was about 8 so below the age of criminal responsibility. You are really trying to say the parent was to blame, so why target thd child in thd title. Has it been headed 'Parents should take control of their children' I would be more sympathetic to your point of view.

I think youre misunderstanding my point. Of course falls can be serious including leading to death.
They are common, and no big deal because of that. Thousands of People fall over every Day, and of course some were caused by other people’s behaviour.

stopping people from behaving like that is impossible though. It’s just life.

erm. I would have thought my title would be completely obvious and clear. Off to pedants corner you go!

Either they were too far away to get to their child to prevent them colliding with a pedestrian in which case that was reckless - what if their child had tripped or something? the pushchair may have gone into the road.

Or they were close enough to stop it but ddidn't bother because they didnt care if their kid collided with someone, in which case that was twattish of them.

If you are going to let your child push the pushchair, you have to be right there ready to step in.

Ah gone are the days when you used to jump back up and limp away from such an incident, laughing when secretly you want to cry.

Everything is a big drama now.

A broken hip is a big drama🙄

Did she break her hip then?

No no no you wouldn’t limp away you’d be DEAD obviously. With your level 65 Osteoporosis. Dur, silly!

YANBU OP and I see the nitpickers are out in force tonight. Of course no one can or will do anything about it, but you’re entirely right to think that the child shouldn’t have been pushing the buggy or at the very least that the parents should have been supervising closely enough to stop the collision. My 8yo likes to steer the buggy but I won’t let her go out of grabbing distance in case it tips into the road. And if she did manage to clip someone I’d be mortified and think it was 100% my fault!

God I’d feel a right dickhead if I got knocked over by an 8 year old with a pram. That’s probably why it was a big drama. To cover the embarrassment

I remember being injured a few years ago, and it was a big eye opener for me - navigating around my home city, commuting using buses and trains; when I usually could move aside or let go of a handrail for someone, duck out of the way, turn normally, or anything else - I couldn't. I would definitely have been hit, and hurt badly. Glad all the pavements you use are so wide and airy - I could have done with those!

This is just victim-blaming. The parents are at fault for not controlling their child and if it were a member of my family hurt in any life-changing way, I would be seeking prosecution or other legal redress.

That’s what OP said in an update.

in terms of being hit by a pushchair - this was entirely preventable.

Would you say the same if the child pushed the buggy in the other direction and put the toddler under a lorry?

That’s quite the leap really.

It’s an 8 year old pushing a pram. Honestly.

What if the person hit had been elderly and broken a bone in falling. Or even had a fatal heart attack? Is there any legal way of punishing the parents for what is essentially an assault.

Its fine for kids to push pushchairs supervised what is not fine is charging into other people which is quite bizzare behaviour for an 8 year old

The parent was to blame. They should have not let their child push the pushchair at such a speed that they hit someone over.
It was not an accident... it was stupid and totally preventable.

Those parents were irresponsible to a unbelievable degree. I guess from some of the responses on the thread, there are more like them out there.

OP, you are very definitely not unreasonable.

Quite a lot of parents can stop their kids pushing a pushchair, particularly when it's clearly potentially dangerous for all parties. So that's that behaviour stopped easily enough. Hardly impossible.

Older folk, those with disabilities, injuries, preganancies, or simply just the will to not get rammed while going about their lives would probably appreciate such easy curbs on behaviour.

I hate seeing young children in charge of other young children. I remember watching a teenager holding a baby while her mum did the shopping and her toddler-aged sister was having a meltdown cos the teenager wouldn't give her the baby. I'm disabled so the slightly jolt can cause a nasty fall so a pushchair running in to me eould be bad and I would certainly expect the patents to take responsibility and reprimand the careless child.

Young kids should be in charge of pushchairs, end of.

My cousin used to let her young DD push her little sister, until one they out of the blue during a walk DD randomly starts running and lets go of the pushchair. We all learned a lesson that day.

(everyone’s fine, all DDs still alive!)

And those ignorant parents will sadly raise equally ignorant children.

My mum's friend let her older child push the pram. She lost control and it rolled into the road. The baby inside the pram lost a leg. Could have been a lot worse.