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.

Wow. That’s quite a statistic

You responded to me, so I haven’t paid attention to what you’ve said or not said.

and the post of mine you first responded to said

“Of course. We can’t control careless people though can we? This is a really weird conversation.”

which I think was pretty clear was referring to controlling other people’s behaviour rather than your own

and it should be fairly obviously the law doesn’t stop you doing anything- it provides consequences after the event.

The experiences of elderly people I know who have fallen sadly validate that many if them never fully recover from a bad fall.

The title is perfectly clear to those not looking to find a million excuses for negligent parents.

To be fair to @Backedoffhackedoff I think they’re simply trying to make the point that with people that unreasonable as to fail to supervise their child and then refuse to acknowledge any fault or apologise to the other party, you’ll never convince them they are the problem, that they’ve done anything at all wrong and therefore that they need to change their approach/attitude in any way, shape or form.

Sadly, you can’t always apply your standards of behaviour and integrity (and IMO the standards of a reasonable, decent society) to everyone, never mind expect them to accept, respect and comply with them.

I'm in exactly the same position as your Mum. I'd not be in a good frame of mind ir body being ambushed by a random toddler

If an 8 year old child has potentially caused someone to break their hip then the adult responsible for the 8 year old should be apologising massively. Yes an accident for the 8 year old who maybe can't be counted on to know better. But the adult responsible for them should have done.

Yes exactly.

i don’t believe for a second anyone thinks someone would troll over something so dull and mundane, but thinks thats a winning insult 🙄

The problem is you can’t say anything because you don’t know the mothers situation or the kid or whatever 🙄

i can imagine the thread on there if it was written from the parents perspective

’don't worry, you did nothing wrong, it’s important your kids be given some freedoms’

’she Should have jumped out the way the daft cow’

’this is your world and no one else should be living in it’

’don't beat yourself up, accidents happen’

Is this a serious question?

You may not have seen my previous point, if it happened to me….I put my hand up and admit I am a dickhead, thankfully a rich dickhead. As the parents, after being sued by me, would learn! Even if they are not wealthy, I would do it so they would learn, as the legal process isn’t pleasant.

Big age gap here. I don’t let my older children push the pram. It’s dangerous, anything could go wrong. I.e pram goes into road and I’m too far back to stop it, pram topples over, someone tries to take the buggy etc.

and yes using a mobile phone whilst walking with a pram is dangerous. Just as walking down the road completely absorbed in your phone and not paying attention to what you are doing.

No, but maybe the parents should be ?

They didn't have a fall - they were pushed.

My DF could be seriously injured, ie hospitalised, by this type of 'accident'. But it's no big deal.

Fair enough. Of course civil litigation would absolutely be an avenue you could pursue in this situation and to be fair, I’m not even sure you’d need your deep pockets either! There are plenty of Personal Injury solicitors who would happily take your claim on on a ‘No win, No fee’ basis, all in the pursuit of some chunky fees if you’re successful. Of course, it’s also no real skin off their noses if you lose as they’ll have insisted on the purchase of some After The Event insurance to protect them from being left hanging and not getting paid.

The lawyers always win….

And in the meantime you then have to spend more money having the judgement enforced because the type of parents who behaves like this, is the type of person who will claim poverty and either dodge paying completely until the Bailiffs appear on their doorstep / offer a payment plan of £5 per month that will take them 15 years to clear the amount owed to you.

In my view, the only dickhead(s) here is the negligent parent(s), not the poor sod that got knocked on their backside and DH’s like that are very rarely prepared to self reflect and change…..frankly because they don’t care enough about anyone else to bother.

Well think some more. Elderly woman falls and fractures her hip. Strong likelihood that she will contract pneumonia and die, all because some stupid parent allowed their kid to do what they wanted. I don’t know about you but if it was my mother that was injured I’d be fucking furious.

I think an eight year old pushing a pushchair is fine... mine used to help with the pushing... but pushing it in an out of control, overly fast way isn't ok. Kids that age could just as easily hurt someone as they whizz around on scooters on the pavement so I'm not sure its the pushchair thats the issue- rather than parents not taking responsibility and control over their kids.

Same idiots allow their child to push laden trolley around supermarket.

That is the thing, when it’s not about money - doesn’t matter how long it takes them to pay. It will teach them a lesson.

On the flip side, I hope it doesn’t happen and I don’t have to do that. I just find that some parents lack accountability, well people in general. Or they think they can do what they want as no one will do anything about it.

I’m a 44 y/o able bodied, reasonably fit adult and even I can struggle to control a full trolley, especially one with a wonky wheel, either in a straight line or successfully navigating a turn into an aisle. Letting a young child steer one around a busy shop without any adult present to give help with movement or steering is just crazy to me.

Eh? "It is hardly a big deal" that the parents were stupid enough to put 2 children in jeapody and allowed one to cause a person to be injured??

I despair at some poster's take on things

Yes it's awful it happened, but I know plenty of 8 year olds who could push a pram carefully enough not to hit people. Maybe this 8 year old has some difficulties with coordination, and if that is the case and the parent(s) know this then they shouldn't be pushing the buggy obviously. I'm not sure though that the parent could have been expected to know a normal 8 year old wouldn't be able to control a pushchair and they may have done it fine many times before. Obviously if they were 3 or 4, that would have been different.

And use scooters in shops

The child here seemed to have a sense of mission in that their charge, ie the pushchair, was of the most importance.

I imagine that was the message given to them by the parent/s.

Not a big deal until it’s you whose been knocked over by a child in charge of a pushchair, and laid up in bed with an injury for a few days.