4 year old driving a car…

[haoshiji]

Saw a shocking thing this weekend. A neighbour about 5 doors down had a guest over on Sunday; she seemed slightly posh form her voice but a bit scruffy. She went to the house and came out with two children, one about 10 (girl ) and a boy (about 4) - I was doing a bit of tidying up in the front garden at the time.

I think the neighbours were looking after the children for a couple of days before hand. Anyhooo. The way she was talking to the children was a bit odd, like she had no idea about children (I know I have no idea about the situation and this is judgemental) and what to do with them. She put them both in the car, took the roof down and then left the car putting DD in the driving seat with the engine on! Eeek.

After about 10 mins the daughter got out the car and explained to the boy she was going to find mummy and don?t go anywhere. After about five mins (yes I was being nosey at this point) the girl came back with the mother; the mother then stared at the boy and told him to be a big boy, she started to explain that she didn?t have a booster seat for either of them and she may have to put the girl in the back seat using a cushion (!) and come back for the boy with the required seat, he started crying.

She then said I know let?s have a driving lesson, wouldn?t you like to be a big boy and learn how to drive? She then got in the driver?s seat, plonked the boy on her lap and let go of the wheel. She then told the boy to use the wheel to steer the car (no belts on at this point).

She proceeded to coax the boy to steer the car (whilst she used the accelerator and brake, making him double over to change gears) backwards into a driveway and almost knocked the gate posts over and a number of plant pots of someone else?s drive. They then managed to go forward and turn left down the road and then u turn and back up the road and park; then the girl had a go. All the time the children were steering, almost hitting some parked cars and some moving ones.

I thought this was absolutely nuts; fair enough to do what you like on your own land but on a public road this is insane, not to mention the lack of booster seats, seat belts etc.

Bah.

OMG. Mad and completely illegal. I would have been tempted to say somethign [big judgey pants emoticon].

A cushion instead of a booster seat for a ten year old is fine, surely?

"A cushion instead of a booster seat for a ten year old is fine, surely? "

Have to say that was low on the list of concerns with the rest of the situation.

I'm blushing now, DD loves sitting in the passenger seat and putting the car into gear (automatic) then driving into our space int he garage. This involves me holding the wheel and her turning it and we aren't on a public road.

Exactly you are on your own land. The child was on her lap in the driving seat, the mother had no hold on the wheel, even when the car nearly scraped a parked car she did not grab the wheel just said louder LEFT, LEFT! The car was not an auto and at four he couldn't reach to change gears without doubling over + using the public road to drive on just seemed like madness to me. V lucky an accident did not happen.

Well if you fell it really was worth making that much fuss about you should have gone and had a word not just posted about it on MN.

How relevant is it that she was "slightly posh ... but a bit scruffy"?

I didn't fall. Not loosing any sleep over it - I did think it was a bit nuts though. An odd thing to see.

How irresponsible and illegal too

I've always said the posh scruffy ones are the worst . Do you think this was a new version of Candid Camera as it sounds quite mad.

"How relevant is it that she was "slightly posh ... but a bit scruffy"?"

I know I read that back and thought exactly the same thing but no edit I'm afraid....

What sort of road is this - a quiet cul-de-sac or something?

I know strictly speaking this is illegal but I have vague memories of my Dad doing this with me when I was little. We were on a very quiet country road just outside the village with no cars anywhere near and big open spaces so we could have seen anyone coming from a long way off. I imagine we were only doing a crawling speed too.

No doubt she would have grabbed the wheel if she really thought there was going to be a collision.

I am not actually defending this and wouldn't do it myself but it doesn't actually sound like there was very much danger here.

Quite a busy through road, leading to a main road at either end. You get quite a few lorries, busses, cyclists etc. down the road.

On a Sunday it's not so busy but still quite a few cars came down both ways at the time; It's by no means a minor road in the middle of nowhere. It's a built up area and a busy road.

Visibility is also fairly poor due to on street parking.

She didn't grab the wheel at all; that's the surprising thing, so many near misses to cars, posts and hedges it was bizarre. She just shouted louder with the directions.

The most danger would have been the u turn at the end of the road, the visibility is bad from both directions; the turns they were doing had more of a zig zag pattern to then with jerky movements and thus took quite a while to perform.