Petrol filling and kids in car

[nosleepforme]

I’m not a driver.
BUT if you fill up petrol and have to pay inside the kiosk, do you need to take your kids in with you? I’d say no. I don’t think that’s called leaving them in the car. I think dh can lock the car a min and pay.
aibu?

yabu = you must remove/unstrap kids and walk across floor to pay
yanbu = who takes kids to pay at the petrol station.

Me neither. I’ve been driving 20 years, all over this country and abroad. I am always baffled by the amount of people who say they take their kids in. I’ve never seen any child ever in a petrol station or on a petrol forecourt. And once I ran out of petrol (during the petrol crisis a few years back) in a queue into the petrol station. And I got my daughter out and walked into the petrol station to buy petrol and I got told off for having a child on the forecourt because it’s dangerous 😂🙈 it was mortifying!!

Oh and there are no pay at pump petrol pumps at all in my town. I’d have to go to the next town along to do that, I had no idea it was so mainstream now that people have never seen a place without pay at pump!!!

Only because with there being no non pay-at-pump options anywhere I've bought petrol in the last 5 years or so I haven't really thought about it!

It’s more dangerous to have kids running around the forecourt. As long as the kids are in sight at all times it’s safe as you are in and out, I would normally pay at pump though. I wouldn’t leave them where I could not see them though.

in the 35 years of being a parent, and the 1000s of times I have filled up with petrol over the years, with absolutely zero incidents ever occurring, this was one of the weirdest things I ever realised when I joined MN - that people would think they should take their kids into pay for petrol.

Absolute nuts.

Never have, never would take kids into pay.

I either take in with me OR make a separate journey for petrol at a time when I am definitely child free. Would never, ever leave them in a car by themselves at a petrol station.

No. Not for a couple of minutes to pay.

Tell me you don’t have multiple births without telling me you don’t have multiple births.

I stay in the car and send the oldest kid in with my card to pay. Solves the issue and he's the one who's most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse.

I have twins, plus 2 more, and it's often so very obvious that people just do not get it 😂 I'm sure the people waiting behind me in the queue would just love sitting waiting and watching the utter faff and time it takes to get 4 kids aged 6 and under out of a car, into the shop to pay, then all back into car seats etc. By the time it takes to get even half of them out the car I could have went and paid and been back again 😂

⬆️ this is what l do

You need to be an octopus really. Three arms to hold onto the kids who are free so they don't wander in front of a car, two arms to free the last remaining kid from the car seat and another to grab your card to go pay. Or you could leave them safely strapped in...

This! I always take the key but wouldnt lock the car. Childock would be on as always.Ive not been to many stations where I cant have eyes on my car but heaven forbid an explosion happens or the car is rammed, how are the kids getting out??? Obviously people will smash windows but knowing kids are in the car most people will try boots/all doors first.

People taking young babies in with them annoy me, next time you are in a busy forecourt, just stand for a few seconds and notice the smells, exhausts, petrol, diesel etc.

I will go and google now but having children stolen from cars is a rare occurrence!!

She was a tiny baby. I wore the wrap and just popped her in, I mean she hadn't reached the lunatic toddler stage and there was only one of her.

Absolutely this. The risk of taking small children across a busy garage, especially if you have several children, is vastly higher than the risk of leaving them in the car. I really judge the parents I see dragging multiple kids across a garage forecourt. Ideally pay at pump is the answer. But if I ever had to go in and pay while my kids were young I would always have left them in the car where it’s safer. We have become extremely poor as a society at risk assessing.

How many petrol station fires are there every year in the UK, and how many of them are raging fireballs that consume cars parked on the forecourt? That risk seems, well, erm, low. In fact so low as to be a crazy concern.

Call me reckless, but I really can’t be troubled by this.

Leave them in the car.
Theyll be fine and you can wolf down a chocolate bar without them knowing

Loads of petrol stations don’t have it.

When they were small, if I only had one with me I would have taken them in with me, I might have left them in the car if they were together. I couldn't lock them in the car though, the immobilizer causes the alarm to go off every time anyone moves if the doors are locked with no key in the engine.

Mostlywilliow

I have 4 children, when my second eldest was days old I used to carry him into the school/ put him into a pram ti collect my eldest. When my next was a few days old I carried a toddler, pushed a pram and collected my eldest. We all have to do stuff like this. I mostly got petrol from pay at pump or at night when we were both home so I didn’t have to bring them.

Or option 3, get fuel when kids aren't in the car. I think most people to this.

Anyone who would get hysterically upset or would help a sibling to unbuckle and get out of the car has to come in with me. Likeliest risk is kids fight and one comes to complain to me and gets run over doing so.

Once talking to police at a filling station. One of the coppers very critical when he realised a dad had left two kids on the car and immediately approached him when he came out of the shop.
I didn’t hang around to see how that one panned out

It does depend on the ages I think. When my 14year old is in the car with the 9 year old, ill leave them if im just going in for fuel. If im getting snacks or something, or I just have my 9 year old and he wants to stay in the car, then ill put petrol in the car, then I'll pull into one of the parking spaces right infront of the actual station where I can see him through the window.

My mum left my brother in the car (always) when doing errands once. He pulled the handbrake and the car rolled into traffic... She still carried on leaving him in the car, stupid woman.

I didn't leave mine in the car because I was worried about fires or kidnap.. my kids were the types to get out of the car and wander off. When they were babies, it's not hard to scoop them up and take them in arms but as I said, my ex used to fill my car up so it didn't occur very often for me.

I take my daughter with me. As a baby/toddler she’d have been in an absolute panic to be left alone in the car even for a few minutes. She’s a bit older now but often there’s a long queue and the petrol stations don’t have an easy view of the pumps from inside the shops. We’re in London so they’re very busy it just feels strange to leave her out there alone all that time. I don’t usually carry a payment card and the pay at pump option doesn’t alway accept payment via phone. I have definitely seen other parents taking their children in as well. Maybe it depends where you are.