How embarrassing. I just let my son ride in the trunk of our car a few weeks ago (he was 16 at the time). I had picked him up from a study group and he wanted me to give the rest of the group a ride home as well. I had my mom with me, and there were 4 kids in the study group and only 3 seats/ belts available in the backseat. One of the girls only lived 2 blocks away and when Nick announced that he would ride in the trunk to free her up a seat, I let him. As I said, it was just two blocks. When the girl got out, Nick (yes, he was showing off) wanted to ride the rest of the way home in the trunk, but I wouldn’t let him – we were about 15 minutes from home with part of the drive on a 2 lane freeway.
Nonetheless, I’ve got to say that these particular parents showed pretty bad judgement. A 20 minute drive, and they left the kids in the trunk while they went into the store? Too much. However, I don’t think it was criminal bad judgement. I think a scare (having the cops stop them and question them) and a fine (the full fine for allowing a kid to ride unseatbelted times two) should have been sufficient.
Yeah, mhendo, I thought the same – Yorktown in general and our area of Yorktown in specific is perfectly safe to walk around in. Hell, the girl lived in the exact same fairly-upscale subdivision as the girl who hosted the study group. When I first saw that we wouldn’t have enough seats, I said, “Gee, I hope you aren’t too far from home to walk…” and the girl started to say, “Oh, no problem…” and Nick piped up with his he-man offer of riding in the trunk. It was a little chilly, I suppose. And it was in the evening and growing dark. Still, I walked all over when I was that age.
What surprised me is that neither of the boys offered to let a girl ride in his lap. After I dropped the second girl off, I mentioned that option to the boys – “Say, instead of Nick riding in the trunk, why didn’t one of you offer your lap to one of the girls?” and they both just starred at me, like, “Why didn’t we think of that!” Dummies. Both of the girls were very cute!
Me too. My friend’s mom put us in the trunk once, at our request. We didn’t call it abuse, we called it an adventure. In retrospect, it wasn’t the wisest of choices, but removing my friend from his parents would have been no wiser.
In high school, I had a friend we called Father Rex. He was very much into cars, driving, racing, etc. Sometimes I drove him home from school since I had a car at the time. He got bored with alway sitting in the front, and requested to ride in the trunk. Okay, I put him in my trunk and drove him home, and everything went fine. He said it was exciting riding back there in the darkness, never knowing when the car would turn or brake. We were high school guys living in the suburbs. We needed any piece of excitement we could get. So we kept doing it.
One day he told me not to close the trunk all the way. I wasn’t sure why he asked, maybe he thought he needed more air. As I was stopped at the light that day, still on my high school grounds, with a long line of teenagers in cars behind me, in my rearview mirror I saw to my horror that the trunk was slowly opening, and Father Rex’s head was emerging. I was stunned for a second. I could tell that Father Rex’s head turned left, then right, then as it had opened, the trunk now slowly closed again. As it closed, I saw the look of mixed astonishment and bewilderment on the girl driving the car behind me.
When the light turned green, I was laughing so hard I could barely drive away.
They don’t need to be sent to the pokey, but I think some parenting classes and maybe some community service is in order. What on earth were they thinking?
I feel sorry for kids today. It’s amazing how little it takes to fire up the righteous indignation. Half of my childhood would now be considered illegal.
Hmm. It seemed so weird when I first read this – putting your kids in the trunk? Madness! But then I remembered the one time I begged and begged to ride around in the hatchback trunk of my parents’ car. It was a Bronco II – damn fine automobile – and there’s an awful lot of trunk space. I was about ten. This was the highlight of my year.
Thinking back on it, I must say…that I had an absolute blast and wouldn’t have given up the experience for anything. It probably wasn’t safe – we just tooled around a parking lot, in any case – and my folks would’ve gotten into trouble if they’d been caught, but I enjoyed it.
Reckless self-endangerment is part of what being a kid is all about. As for the parents, well…playing Mafia with the kids is one thing, but 20 miles is a complete something else. Around the neighborhood for 5-10 minutes, sure. 20 miles…well, that’s risky. IANACop, but if I’d pulled someone over after 20 miles of kids in the trunk, I’d ticket them. I’ve seen far too many kids bouncing on Mommy’s lap in the passenger seat…makes me want to take a chainsaw to something.
It probably wasn’t safe – we just tooled around a parking lot, in any case – and my folks would’ve gotten into trouble if they’d been caught, but I enjoyed it.