7-yr-old killed riding quad bike ON UNLIT ROAD AFTER DARK!!!

[WendyWeber]

What were they thinking of???

But thing is, say you have one of these quadbikes.

You need to ride it somewhere so you arrange to go on the closest available field.

But you still need to get the quadbike into the field, assuming the field isn't yours. So rather than hiring a lorry or arranging convoys of adults, they roped the children in.

Think that's what they were doing. I mean it is barking obviously but I can sort of understand how they came to do it.

In my mind, this is so exactly similar to the Madeleine thing ...

It would've been pretty stupid in daylight, but at NIGHT?

No!

The dad was picking up a friend from down the road, and the kids were desperate to ride their quad bikes having only had them 1 day, so he said OK, you can come with me and follow the car on the bikes there and back.

I'm willing to bet their mother didn't know what was going on

An 'older woman' was in the car and later gave an account of what happened. I'd be willing to bet that she's Grandma.

These roads are used by cars most of each day (mainly as a shortcut between villages and towns) - they are not hardly ever used.

I don't think anyone will 'learn' anything.
If they are stupid enough to even consider it then they are far to stupid to learn anything from anything.
Thick as sh*t

The hope is always there that people may learn lessons from such events, but I fear you may be right Kitty. Some people can be amazingly dense/stubborn/arrogant and refuse to believe that 'it will happen to them'. I've just seen on the news that a 1 year old baby has been killed by the family Rottweiler and the same thought went through my head. Hasn't this scenario happened enough times before? How many more deaths of innocent children, and lives destroyed, will it take for people to wake up?

inthegutter I thought of this thread with the rottweiler story.

I don't like some of the gloating tone of this thread ether, but I do think this guy needs to be prosecuted "pour encourager les autres". There is a massive difference between taking reasonable risks because life is not risk-free and children should not be wrapped in cotton wool, and taking a predictably dangerous, illegal risk. I feel terribly sorry for the family, but anyone involved in this illegal decision should be prosecuted. It doesn't mean to say you lock them up with hard labour, you can show compassion in sentencing.

BTW, the illegal thing of letting children go on a bike on the pavement is completely different - that's letting them do something illegal to keep them safe, not to expose them to danger. It's the law that's wrong in this case, not the decision to allow your children to ride their bikes on the pavement.

Interesting debate - but the cycling on the pavements is a bit of a red herring. Here's a bit on how the law has been interpreted by the courts and where it's meant to apply (and to whom).

Seems they live on a farm so if the kids were so desperate to ride the bikes then in a field in day light could have been an option.

I think the dad did not want to do the whole A&E thing as he knew he was in deep shit, and the poor driver will have to live with the fact that due to someone else's stupid actions she has killed a little girl.

The driver and the little girl and the brother are the only ones I feel sorry for, the parents could still have their beautiful little girl today if they wee not thick as pig shit.

I hope if nothing else they at least take the bike away from their son.

What a horrible post Kim. We don't yet know exactly who was involved in the decision to allow the children on the public road. So it's a bit early to start rationing our compassion. I feel sorry for the whole family. Even the idiot father.

Kimi - seems to me you ought to retitle yourself on this thread. Something like KimiFullOfBileFor2008?

This situation is dreadful. All the more appalling due to it being COMPLETELY avoidable. All the adults involved will have to live with this for the rest of their lives - I imagine the parents will never forgive themselves. But coming on here and slagging them off in the nastiest terms helps no one.

Be a dear and shut up.

Kimi I completely agree, they are thick as shit, complete twats.
You're not full of bile just saying the truth.

whilst you may be right, they may be stupid and complete twats, can we try to remember that they have lost their darling daughter?

They deserve some compassion for that.

Whilst it is true that children on farms drive tractors etc at an early age it doesn't make it safer. About 5 children a year die on farms (although that includes accidents in slurry, hay stack accidents etc), and there have been repeated attempts to stop the use of tractors by under 17s. Research also found that about 1000 accidents a year to children on farms went unreported to the HSEC, although as 'workplae accidents' they should have been. But that is from between 1999 and 2003 - so maybe awareness and the law has been tightened since then.

If you knew people in real life, who had lost a child to accidental death that could, with hindsight, have easily been avoided would you berate them?

I imagine those self righteous posters who persistently bash bereaved parents as indignant hens, clucking and squalking their indignance at human mistakes.

There but for the grace of God go any of us. Maybe we would not let our dcs near a quad bike, a rotweiller, or leave them alone - but most of us let them swim in the sea when on holidays, or play close to a resort pool, or climb on the furniture, ride bicycles on roads, play rugby, potentially have access to the medicine cupboard...

I almost caused a road accident this morning, when tired on a very long journey - had my foolishness caused injury or death I would never have forgiven myself. I had driven past a potential rest stop at the half-way mark because I was impatient to reach my destination, that was a reckless mistake and one I won't make again. The parents of that unfortunate little girl were not so lucky.

I would berate them, but not to their faces.
A crap decision is still a crap decision.
We all make mistakes and I have certainly made my fair share of them, but letting a child do this, that's just shite. There's no "there bit for the grace of God' in this case.

"not to their faces" - that speaks volumes about the type of person you are Kittymaspudding. You actually sound glad that this has happened.

This thread is a vile echo of the Madeleine McCann one with vipers and vultures queuing up to slate the parents ....but only behind their backs, of course. I hope it is deleted.

donnie to extrapolate that what from I wrote you have a very vivid and somewhat twisted imagination.
Do not claim to glean volumes of knowledge about my personality. You are reading far too much into things and will end up winding yourself up for no good reason.

poor child

Their daughter is not their possession to lose, so that they have been "punished enough" by losing her. She was her own living self. They were supposed to take care of her.

Yes, this was not an 'accident' this was neglect.
They were supposed to be responsible, to protect her from danger. Any fool could see that letting a child on a quad bike was asking for trouble. This is something that could have been avoided %100.

Another child dead due to parents negligence. I have a 9 1/2 yr old son and we were looking at getting him an electric bike for xmas, but we then found he was too big for electric ones and we would have to get a petrol one. Now we live in an area with plenty of enclosed areas BUT cars still drive into them as they are allowed to. So we decided not to get one as 1, they are too powerful and 2, our ds1 is too precious to us to put his life at risk. We then looked at other things such as the dareway but upon inspection of it found when you brake it can tip as it brakes hard. Instead we bought him what children should have ....Toys.
These parents were wrong and yes they will feel like crap for the rest of their lives but hey they ended their daughters life through neglect. Those mn's who have compared this to Maddie, well lets face it it is the same thing negligence. How many responsible parents would allow their children to do this? Typical parents who allow their kids to do things and not care and then want the world to feel sorry for them. I am not perfect and have made mistakes but not any that would put my sons life at risk because quite frankly he means too much to me for me to do so.

How awful - for everybody involved. Tragic.

If I were friends with the family of course I would not berate them.
I feel immense sympathy for them. I can think of nothing worse than being responsible for the death of your own child.
I do not know them however. All I know is what has been told about their actions, and not about them as people. And while I can think of nothing worse than being in their position, it is surely possible to say that they made a massive mistake. A gross error of judgement.