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.

If you persist in your view that falls are no big deal can I suggest you study this recent document from NICE?

There is a big push on fall prevention at the moment because it causes so many premature deaths and costs the NHS so much money.

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng249

Well, it is getting to the stage where parents are being held responsible when it is their negligence which causes the issue as in this case and as in the case of the Stockport killer.

Hopefully one day parents will realise that deciding to have children comes with responsibility.

When children are given a job to do, they often feel like this. Nothing to do with the parents or the accident.

What a ridiculous comment. Older people falling and getting hip breaks can be life altering. My mum never got out of a bed ever again after breaking her hip. The adult in charge of the buggy pushing kid is ridiculously careless and needs parenting instruction and common sense instruction. What a pathetic excuse for an “adult”.

@Flamingcoming
honestly, I don’t know what has happened to MN. It used to be a community of intelligent conversation - robust at times but overall, full of thoughtful perspectives. Now it’s… well. Some of the comments here are just 🤷

We were reading your posts, which was all we had to go on. Now it seems that perhaps you mean that although regrettable, accidents, even fatal accidents, are a natural part of life?

Or am I paraphrasing incorrectly? Because that is truly not my intention and I apologise if that is the case. It is a valid point of view, though in this case I disagree and think the adult was negligent and beyond rude.

Victim blaming.

The onus is on the parents to be responsible and not allow their kids to cause accidents in the first place.

It is easy to avoid a pushchair handled by a parent going in a straight line but harder to avoid a zig-zagging pushchair handled by a kid who is going too fast and likely not aware of their surroundings.

It’s lazy, irresponsible, stupid parenting to let a young child do something that could (and has) injure another person completely needlessly, but people are tying themselves into pretzels to try and justify it.

That isnt for you to judge. So many people allow their kids to cause injury and inconvenience to others then moan when people roll their eyes when they have to share space with them. It’s not even the fault of the child, its the dumbass parents who should be parenting

And plenty of us have tried to explain to @Backedoffhackedoff exactly why a fall is a big deal for an elderly person.

not sure what threads you got that from, mumsnet has always been a mix of personalities over the years, do you remember mumsnet royalty at one point pre covid ?

the reason i said this is because of this :

i read that if your in a car and you know a crash is about to happen and your in the correct lanes etc but you let the crash happen because you were in the correct lanes etc aparently your still partly responsible for not trying to avoid it.

to me it seems this was similar if the pedistrian was walking towards the pushchair then why not step out the way or step to one side ?

its like they both played who will move first and both lost

that was my logic apologies i didnt intend to blame anyone it was based on the car crash point

But that assumes the person who was hit could have moved out of the way

Yes if you deliberately let it happen. But if you don’t see it or can’t get out of the way then it’s not your responsibility.

A kid that is too young and not able to understand that other people are there shouldn’t be pushing a buggy without a parent in hand’s reach.

And if the pedestrian hit had sustained a fracture, or had been elderly?

I once read a newspaper report about a child on a scooter going too fast on the pavement and slamming into an elderly man as he was stepping out of his front gate onto the pavement. The child caused the man to fall, and break his hip. He never left hospital. He died there.

You can't lock the child up, but I wish you could punish such slack and neglectful parenting.

YABU to say no child should ever push a pushchair because of an accident. Many children push prams safely every day. You might as well suggest banning adults from driving because you witnessed one person who was careless and caused an accident.

personally yes the roads would be much safer then

Accidents are accidents. Obviously you shouldn't do something you KNOW will cause an accident. but there's no more reason to suspect that an 8 year will crash into someone with a pushchair than there is that an adult will. If we stopped doing anything that could cause an accident it would be illegal to leave home.

In the OP the child was in a crowded street pushing the pushchair to fast. It's obvious that this would cause an accident. It's an accident that wouldn't have happened if the parents used their brains and told the child to either slow down or take the pushchair themselves. I stunned I'm explaining this to a adult

Parents caused it not child. The parents allowed this to happen

Silly.

No, just for the parents to acknowledge their stupidity in allowing a young child to be in charge of a pushchair containing a younger sibling and to ram other pavement users.

Totally with OP.

Often accidents are the result of rank stupidity or dereliction of care.

Very few such incidents are true accidents.

If I warn my son not to carry a drink upstairs and he spills it on the carpet that is NOT an accident - it's stupidity and carelessness.

I don’t blame the child. She was obviously bewildered and confused because she thought she was responsible only for the buggy - not the other people on the street.

The parents were consoling her that it was just an accident.

The child wasn't taught. From a very young age, around 3 I always taught my kids to walk in front of me if someone else was using the path coming towards us. Adults now don't seem to have got this memo and certainly don't teach the children it. It's like when people coming the other way don't think to move to make way for everyone. I've told my kids to never step into the road because someone won't make way by walking in single file when passing someone, they should hold their ground and wait for someone to move. If the parents had taught their child this she should have been aware and made space but knocked someone down. Parenting, or lack of it is what caused this accident. With proper parenting by 8 they should know to make allowances for others especially as it was a busy street.

Totally, but if your son wants to take his drink upstairs would you

• be 100% sure he will spill it and so say no

OR

• be 100% sure he won't spill it and say yes

Either

• you always say no drinks upstairs in your house so there can never be an accident.

OR

• at some point you decide he is responsible enough to take a drink upstairs, but maybe he still spills it.

If you decide he is old enough to take a drink upstairs and he agrees, but he still spills it, does that mean that you are stupid and careless for letting him take a drink upstairs whether he's 3. 13, or 33?